AT THE SURREY TABERNACLE, BOROUGH ROAD
“The stone was cut out of the mountain without hands.” Daniel 2:45
AS THE Lord knows what his people need, he knows how to make them feel what they need, and to prepare them to receive that mercy, and that salvation, and that righteousness, and that order of truth, without which they cannot be saved; he knows how to convince them of sin, to humble them into the dust before him, and to make them poor enough to need the provisions he has for them; so also he will take care to prepare them not only to receive what he has for them, but he will also take care to prepare them to do that which he has appointed for them to do. Therefore, when Daniel and his companions, were brought to Babylon, the Lord of course saw and knew the kind of circumstances that would occur. Daniel and his companions did not know, but the Lord did and, therefore, the Lord stepped in, and caused Daniel and his companions to choose that line of separation from luxury, from drink, and from everything carnal and worldly, from everything that would be contrary to the character which they sustained as Israelites, contrary to that order of things in which they stood before God. The Lord stepped in in this matter and led them to choose that path that would be of very great advantage to them, whereby they should maintain their freedom, whereby they should be always sober, and prepared for anything that might occur. The king has a mysterious dream; he calls the ministers of his gods; and not one amid them all could either bring the dream to the mind of Nebuchadnezzar, or explain it, even if they could have brought it to his mind, in a way that should have satisfied the king. Then comes a decree that all the wise men shall be destroyed: this decree of course would include Daniel and his companions. But then Nebuchadnezzar knew not Daniel's God; he knew not Daniel's religion; he knew not that secret which Daniel and his companions did know; and, therefore, Daniel requested that time should be given to him; for he knew that his God was capable, and well able to do, what the gods of the Babylonians could not do; what the gods of the magicians, and the astrologers, and the soothsayers, and the Chaldeans, could not do. Therefore, Daniel and his companions, quite free, they had lived upon water and pulse, the brain cool, the heart warm, the mind elastic, the soul expansive; everything free; it mattered not whether it was early or late, or whatever time it was; all was free: the decree could not find them at a time when they were surfeited either with the luxuries of the flesh, or softness; or anything else; Daniel and his companions, there and then, at once, went to pray to their God; they engaged in solemn and earnest prayer. There appeared from the decree of the king nothing but destruction before them; but we here see what prayer can do.
And is the Savior's name less powerful now? Is the Holy Spirit less able to be the Spirit of grace and supplication now? Is God our Father less attentive to the cries of his children now, than he was then? Cannot prayer prevail now as well as then? And although our circumstances may be very different in form, still, let them be what they may; still the Scriptures tell us, “Let your requests be made known by prayer and supplication unto God; for the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” And the righteous man is the man that is justified by a Savior's blood, justified by a Savior's righteousness; that man comes before God with a heart sincere, with a pure conscience, with a faith unfeigned, pleading all the efficacy of the atonement of the dear Savior, and of his righteousness; and such shall avail much. We cannot explain what the feelings of Daniel and his companions were when the Lord heard them, and answered them, and unfolded to Daniel the future history of the world, so far as that world was connected with the progress, and circumstances, and welfare of the church. Daniel saw in the contrast, the mighty, the everlasting difference between the kingdoms of this world and the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ; he saw the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ; he saw the kingdoms of men rise one after the other, and fall, and come by and bye to everlasting silence and desolation, to be heard of no more, only as a matter of history. But on the other hand, here is a living stone; here is another King; here is another kingdom; here is another order of things, in which he saw into God's eternity; not merely God's abstract eternity, but the eternity of his counsels, the eternity of his kingdom, the eternity of his dear Son, and the blessedness which he had in Christ Jesus the Lord. Thus, then our text is expressive of this wonderful Person, the dear Savior, who shall reign, and whose kingdom must rule for ever, overall.
We shall not have time to go all through the subject this morning; it is too great, and too various; and I cannot dismiss it lightly; it contains too much to go through in one sermon. Now it will divide itself something like this. Here is first a stone; a stone of memorial, I will call it; secondly, here is a mountain to which that stone belonged, and of which it formed a part; thirdly, here is a separation of this stone from this mountain, and its transfer to another mountain, and then, fourthly, here will be the way in which it is done, “Cut out without hands.”
First: The first thing is the character of this stone. It is A STONE OF MEMORIAL. Now, in ancient times, when the Lord was pleased to manifest himself by any particular favor or mercy, it was customary for the ancients to set up something as a memorial of the same; and therefore, a stone was generally chosen, as that which was durable; it was something they wished not to be forgotten, something they wished to remember; and we shall see the reasons for this as we go along, and enter into this great character of Christ; for I know not any character he sustains that can be dearer to us than that of his being a Stone of Memorial; and which I think, as we go along, we shall see. Now, then first, for I must have experience in this matter, there are two ways of remembering God. We read of some that forget God altogether; but then there are others that do not forget God, but that remember God, that make a profession of his name, and that walk externally in his ways, and yet perhaps have never had any right remembrance of him; so that, having never had any right remembrance of him, they are not prepared to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as the Stone of Memorial. Let me, then, just describe to you the way into a right remembrance of God. In the first place, we read in the word of God, and every man taught of God reads the same in his own experience, that “There is none that does good; no, not one;” that “There is none righteous, no, not one;” and that when our nature, our fallen nature, internally in the heart, is tested by the law of God, we may begin at the first commandment, and go all through the law, and take that law in its purity, and we shall prove to have in our hearts, to have in our nature, the elements, the seeds, the roots of every sin prohibited by the law; in a word, that we are guilty before God by every commandment of the law. And when convinced of this, God Almighty, in his integrity as a sin-avenging God, as a God of judgment, because more or less a God of terror! Oh, to have nothing to think of in my mind! nothing to think of in my soul but my sins, God's eternal law, and that banishment from him, and that judgment which shall be sins demerit! let a sinner be brought there, he will then want something as a remedy for all this. Oh, he will say, what an awful God is this God; what a terrible curse is my existence; how happy for me if I had never been born! Unclean! Unclean I and do whatever I may, I can no more alter my nature than the Ethiopian can change his skin, or the leopard his spots. So, my hearers, if God remember you, and God remember me only by his eternal law, there is not a particle of anything there for us but judgment without mercy, wrath without favor; blackness, and darkness, and tempest; lost! must be lost, forever and forever. There is no right remembrance of God without this conviction of the way in which he cannot be remembered with love; for no man since the fall, ever yet loved God in his law, where God appears only a God of wrath. This appears to me to be the great deficiency of the present day. There is a great deal said about coming to Christ, and believing in Christ; but oh, my hearer, if there be not conviction at the base, at the root, in the soul, of our need of that Christ I shall presently try to set before you, you may depend upon it that our reception of him is not right, that we are not united to him by the eternal Spirit of the blessed God; and if we are not thus united to him, however zealous and devoted we may be, so far so, as to give all our goods to feed the poor, and our body, to be burned, yet, if not vitally united by the Holy Ghost to Christ Jesus, so as to love him, and love the truth as it is in Jesus; we are nothing, and must be lost. Now Christ, then, being the end of the law for righteousness, and being the end of the curse, becomes another way in which the Lord remembers his people; and the contrast is as complete as possible. Let us then look at this Stone of Help, this Stone of Memorial. I will look at it in several Scriptures; the way in which the Lord remembers his people. He gave them to Christ, gave them to his dear Son, and all their sins, every one of them, their sin in Adam, their sin in heart, their sin in life, were imputed to Christ, and Christ has put those sins eternally away; and now the Lord, in and by Christ Jesus, remembers us without sin, “You are all fair, my love; there is no spot in you.” “He has not beheld iniquity in Jacob, nor seen perverseness in Israel.” And here we may remember the same God, the same everlasting God, in his holiness, justice, integrity, and in all the qualities of his eternal law; we remember him here in Christ without a particle of wrath; here he appears in an immutable oath not to be angry, nor even to rebuke. Here it is that “God is love.” Oh, think of him in his election of your soul; think of him in his ordaining you to eternal life; think of him in and by the blood of Jesus; think of him in this new covenant order of things. Here he remembers us in love, without wrath, in mercy, without the shadow of a curse. And Christ, therefore, is the Stone of Memorial. And this leads us into that three-fold secret, for we reckon them kind of secrets, that Jacob sets before us; and that is the first Scripture I will refer to, in Genesis 49. He there, when speaking of plenty, and of strength, and of ultimate prospect, suggests the way in which we have these advantages, “From thence,” he says, “is the shepherd, the stone of Israel.” Does not Jacob here refer, by a reflex idea, to the stone that he had years before set up at Bethel; a stone of memorial, which he said would be God's house? Here is the stone, Christ Jesus. He will remember us by that which is durable. The stone was chosen for durability, And the Lord Jesus Christ is certainly durable, remarkable for durability. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” Now, what then do we get in this fellowship with God, by this living stone, Christ Jesus? “Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall.” But how came we into a land where there is a well at all? because by nature we are under the law, where there is nothing but wrath; by nature, we are in a pit, where there is no water. But here, by Christ Jesus, Joseph becomes a fruitful vine; and so, by our being planted together in Christ Jesus, where the Lord does not remember our sins, the sins that work in our hearts every day torment and trouble us; but he does not remember them; no, he pities us under them; and what, under the law, would have been fatally criminal, is under the gospel reckoned an infirmity: “Compassed with infirmities“ The flesh is weak, but the spirit is willing so that where the law would minister eternal condemnation, there the gospel pours in oil and wine. Now, here it is we become fruitful. The more I know of the Lord Jesus Christ as the entire end of the law, the more I know of him as the way in which God remembers me: what is the result? Why, the more I love God the Father, for giving me to Christ, and the more I love Christ for what he has done, and the more I love the Holy Spirit of God for revealing this wondrous secret to me. The Lord remembers us here in everlasting love, rests in his love, rejoices over us. Oh, if we want a church to be fruitful, let it be planted here, by this well of salvation. Here is the great secret of fruitfulness; and it will make you love the Lord, rejoice in the Lord, trust in the Lord; and it will teach you to see so much, beauty and glory into the God of Israel, as to eclipse everything else; that you will not at all wonder at the language of the Psalmist when he said, “Who in the heaven can be compared unto the Lord? Who among the sons of the mighty can be likened unto the Lord?” How little everything appears in comparison of the great truth that he remembered us in our low estate, after the order of eternal mercy, “For his mercy endures forever.” But if we are brought thus rightly to consider of his doings; if we are brought thus to know that where we were we could be remembered only in a way of wrath; and brought to know where the Lord does remember us in mercy, and where no meditation can be so sweet as the meditation of his loving-kindness in Christ Jesus; if brought here, we shall have plenty of enemies. The world knows not its condemnation by the law; and therefore, does not prize the work of Christ as the end of that law; knows nothing, therefore, of vital godliness; and so, we must not be surprised if the archers, that are very clever in that art, should shoot at us, and should grieve us sometimes, because we think some of them ought to know better. But what then?, “His bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the Mighty God of Jacob,” Here then by this stone, the Shepherd of Israel, this way of remembering us, our strength is proportioned to our need; “The arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the Mighty God of Jacob” So that you have here God on your side; not partially; in the old covenant, the Jews were hardly ever free from some partial violations of that covenant; and therefore, there were always some drawbacks, that they hardly ever could acquire the full advantages of the covenant under which they were. But it is not so here, in Christ Jesus; the Lord does not withhold grace here on account of any sin in us. Sin may hinder us here in this order of things; but it cannot hinder him; it may harden our hearts against our soul's welfare to a certain extent, but it will never touch his heart, to harden that against us. No; “With him there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” Therefore, the great secret of the Lord strengthening us; and enabling us in his great name, and in the exceeding great and precious promises of his holy word, to face the troubles of life boldly, to march through the valley of the shadow of death without fear, and to have a triumphant entrance into the kingdom of heaven, the whole secret is that he remembers us by Christ Jesus. And Jacob was favored to open up this matter very abundantly to Joseph; and so he says, “The blessings of your father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors; unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills;” 'the very hills of eternity; Jacob goes on to eternity, “unto the utmost bound of the everlasting bills;” as though he had said, Joseph, go on to eternity, salvation, to Christ's righteousness, to his mercy, to his glory, and you will find no end to this love, to God's stone of memorial by which the Lord remembers us, by which our strength is proportioned to our day, and by which we have presented to us things that are eternal. “An inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fades not away.”
Then from Genesis 49 we will come to Exodus 28 and see if we can get a word there upon this matter. The high priest figuratively was a kind of stone of memorial; he was to bear on his shoulders precious stones, as stones of memorial, the names of the twelve tribes of Israel, engraved upon these stones; he was to bear on his breastplate the twelve stones of memorial continually before the Lord. The high priest; therefore, was a kind of living stone of memorial. What does this mean? it means our acceptance with God. The priest enters the holy of holies, and the Lord there meets him, accepts the sacrifice, and the people are blessed. What a sweet type of him who has said; “In my Fathers' house are many mansions” (that is plenty of room, and every variety of adaptation to that honor and glory to which you shall be raised;) “if it were not so,” (if there were not room, or if it were not every way adapted to the dignity and glory to which you shall come,) I would have told you but I go to dedicate heaven to you by my blood; that is the way of preparing a place for you; and if I go, and do you doubt that I shall go? is there any doubt about it? they saw him go; he lifted up his blessed hands, the hands that had been nailed to the cross; his last act on earth was to lift up his hands, and let fall upon the anointed heads of his disciples, the blessings of his priesthood: “He lifted up his hands, and blessed them. And a cloud received him out of their sight.” Is he gone to heaven? Oh, this same Jesus, said the angel, whom you have seen taken up, you will find him the same another day; the same Savior; the same Jesus; this same Jesus shall come in like manner; he left you blessing you, and he will meet you again blessing you; he has nothing but blessing for you. And, therefore, this is a memorial. So that Jesus bears his people before the burning throne as the memorial; and they are accepted by his precious blood; there he presents us without fault; without spot, without wrinkle, or any such thing. Aaron dare not alter this matter. What a wondrous way of being remembered, a wondrous way, I can hardly believe it sometimes! Here am I, with a heart as vile as hell itself; here am I, daily conscious that I am not worthy of the least, much less of the greatest, of the Lord's mercies; and feel this morning, that but for the almightiness of God's long-suffering, I must have been cut down long ago. Bless his holy name, for that Man that is a hiding-place! that Rock that is a shadow to the poor weary traveler! And so long as the Lord makes these things a burden to us; and makes us groan and sigh, it proves that there is a superior life at the bottom, heaving up, and striving to get rid of this incubus, and plunge into the full glory of everlasting bliss, to be where Jesus, is. The stone of remembrance. He remembers us, then, by the perfect work of the Great High Priest of our profession.
Again, I come to Joshua 4; and I find that the passage over the Jordan is to be signified by stones of memorial; for as many priests typified one, so the many memorials all point to this one, Christ Jesus. And how will the Lord bring us safely over Jordan? how will he bring you through Jordan? how will he be with you there? how will it be true of you, supposing you could speak and say the words, when you come there,
“A mortal paleness on my cheek,
But glory in my soul?”
How can that be? Ah! it will be because he will remember you by his dear Son. Jesus is the Stone of Memorial and remembering you in that hour by his dear Son, he will see no reason why he should not be with you, because your sin is put away, you are righteous, by the righteousness of Christ, loved in Christ, one with Christ, an heir of God, joint heir with Christ Jesus. Thus, then I have fruitfulness, strength, acceptance, assurance of safety through Jordan. I then go to 1 Samuel 7; and when the people renounced their false gods, they poured water upon the ground; they renounced the false gods, and vowed a vow to be on the side of Jehovah; and they poured water on the ground; and that water; being poured on the ground, could not be gathered up again; we must take this as a type of the fact that the Lord does bring the poor sinner to renounce false gods, and to be on his side; and if the words go out of our mouths by the Holy Spirit, depend upon it, it cannot be gathered up again, cannot be recalled. What do you say to this, Abraham, can you recall your oath? will you gather up your words again, and recall them, and undo them and go contrary to them? No. “I have lift up my hand unto the Lord, the most High God, the possessor of heaven and earth, that I will not take from a thread even to a shoe latchet from the king of Sodom.” I am bound in God's eternal oath; he has sworn to be my God, and he will never recall his oath, and God forbid I should ever recall mine. And so, says Samuel, we will set up a stone of memorial here, and we will call it Ebenezer; for the Lord has given us the victory, established us in the truth; and we will rejoice that hitherto the Lord has helped us. A stone of memorial; he so remembers us, then, as to give us the victory, as in the case of the Philistines; the Lord thundered upon the Philistines, alarmed them, drove them away, gave the Israelites the victory; so, comes the stone of memorial, to show that the Lord has given them the victory.
I come to the New Testament, and there I find the stone of memorial given. Peter stands before the council. Have we not strictly, very strictly, very authoritatively, commanded you, (we put on our most important authority, that you should not teach or preach in his name? Peter very quietly says, Weil, we ought to obey God rather than man, certainly. We know you commanded us, but then, your command was only the command of man; and we, on the other hand, are commanded to preach Jesus Christ; and we certainly ought to obey God rather than man; and to speak plainly to you, gentlemen, “There is no other name given under heaven among men whereby we must be saved.” This is the stone, which was set at naught by you builders, but is become the head of the corner. See how this stone of memorial is set up all through the Scriptures. Thus, then, to sum up the whole of this part, do I wish to be fruitful? It must be by Christ Jesus. Do I wish to be “strong in the Lord and the power of his might?” It must be by Christ Jesus. Do I wish to look forward to the hills of eternity, over all the gloomy hills of darkness, that intervene between this and those shining hills? It must be by Christ Jesus. Do I wish to be accepted of God? It must be by Christ Jesus. Do I wish to pass with safety through Jordan? It must be by Christ Jesus. Do I want the Lord to help me? It must be by Christ Jesus. Do I wish to have an everlasting day? “This is the day which the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it because he has put an end to night;” the night of sin, the night of wrath, the night of death, the night of hell; there is no day in hell; there is no night in heaven; there is day there, everlasting day; “We will rejoice and be glad in it.” The stone of memorial.
Secondly: I now come, secondly, to the MOUNTAIN to which this stone belonged, and from which our text shows it was severed. Now, you must fix in your minds here, a definite idea of what is intended by the mountain. Get a right idea of what is intended by the mountain, and then we shall go on clearly with this part of our subject. The mountain, then, is a figure of speech, denoting a kingdom. That is the meaning of the word mountain here, as also further back in the chapter. This same stone becomes a great mountain; that is, a great kingdom. And so here is the separation from one kingdom, and transfer to another kingdom. Hence, we find that a kingdom of this world is also called a mountain; and I will briefly notice this, before I proceed to show how Christ was a part of one mountain; then, the next thing after that, will be to show how he was severed from that mountain, and transferred to another. In Jeremiah 51, you will find that Babylon is called a mountain; and I think that Babylon there, is a figure of the whole of the ungodly world. “Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain, which destroyed all the earth; and I will stretch out my hand upon you, and roll you down from the rocks, and will make you a burnt mountain.” Burnt mountain means this, that the judgment of God should enter into that kingdom and go burning on and consume it. So, it has done. Where is Babylon now? Lying in the dust, lying in silence. The fire, as every traveler over its ancient site testifies, the fire of God's judgment, not literal fire, but a fire that is worse than that; literal fire may be quenched by literal and material means; but the fire of God's judgment cannot be quenched: the fire of God's judgment is still burning there, and will burn there, down to the end of time. And if you, my hearer, and if I, if we are still forming a part of the ungodly world then God Almighty is against us and, however near the rock may be, that we may climb, we may go up into riches, and honors, and dignities, and friendships and pleasures, and I don't know what all: there stands the word, “I will roll you down, and you shall become a burnt mountain.” And there is another significant thing too, that will help us out with the meaning of our text. In ancient times, when persons were about to build a city, or erect any very important building, the question was, now which of the gods among the thousands that are, shall we choose to protect this city or this building? Well, of course we must choose that god whose territories prosper the most. And therefore, when Babylon was in the height of her prosperity, they said, well, we will go to Babylon, and take a stone for the corner, a corner stone, from that city, for this city or for this building that we are about to raise; and that will engage Babylon's god on our side; and so, we shall have the same prosperity that city has. I am now giving you the heathenism of it. And sometimes they would choose the stone for a foundation; because, they said, if we choose a stone from that city where they do so well, that will engage their god in our favor; and if we put that stone at the foundation of our building, why, it cannot sink. That is the idea. And from this very ancient practice is taken the idea of the corner stone. Hence, in the 51st Jeremiah, God goes on to say, “They shall not take of you a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations; but you shall be desolate forever, says the Lord.” Now transfer this idea, as though the Lord should say, well now, I mean to have a city; and I mean to take a stone from where there is prosperity, and that is from heaven; for while Christ formed a part of the earthly kingdom, he was God as well as Man. Jesus Christ came from heaven; so that the corner stone is there; Christ came from heaven, and became the corner of that city; and that city is consecrated to God by Christ as the corner stone; and whatever glory there is in heaven, that city shall rise to, the people shall possess; and as heaven can never come to nothing, God's city can never come to nothing. Then if you take it as a building, again, “Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” God being the strength of the building, the building is safe; neither is there any other corner stone, by which the building can be safe; there is no safety without the everlasting God on our side.
But Christ formed a part of an earthly kingdom. He formed a part of the Jewish kingdom; he was cut out of that kingdom, as our text shows. Let us look for a moment, in conclusion, at that kingdom, when Christ formed a part of it. Look at that kingdom, first, with him; and then without him. First, with him, when good men were in the ascendant, in that age when good men were on the throne, men who knew the truth, and no false gods or idolatrous system held. What was the result? I will show what the result was, and when the reverse took place, and the truth was excluded. I will show what the result was. Now, the Lord gave a conditional promise to David that his children should sit upon his throne, “The Lord has sworn unto David in truth, and will not turn from it, that of the fruit of your body will I set upon your throne.” But all the promises in that Psalm are conditional. “If your children will keep my covenant;” notice that if: it is carried all through the Psalm. And just so far as David's children abode by the truth of God they prospered; but did they keep the covenant and testimony which God had taught them? No; they forsook God's covenant, and God forsook them. Does the Lord dwell in Zion now? No; Satan has it. Does the Lord rest there now? No. Is it the object of his desire now? No. Does he satisfy the poor with bread there now? No; there is no provision there now. Does the horn of David bud? No. Is there a lamp? The lamp is quenched and will never be lighted again. We hear great talk now a days of the nonsense of an earthly millennium, but men will never get it; they may pray for it, and preach for it, and print for it, and pay for it, and run for it; but they will never get it, never. There is not a Jew under heaven that knows his genealogy; the lamp is quenched forever; the throne is gone, gone, and gone forever. But, you say, I thought that Psalm had a spiritual meaning. So, it has, “If your children keep my covenant.” They did not. But presently in comes another Son, a peculiar Son; as Erskine says, “The Son of Man, but no man's son.” The Son of God steps in; he keeps God's testimony; he establishes another kind of kingdom. He took the if up, he looked at the if; “If I keep the covenant;” I will keep it; he did too; if I keep the testimony I will keep it; he did too kept it; went to the end of the law, the end of sin, established the everlasting covenant with precious blood; and now there is another Zion which he has chosen; another Zion which he desires for his habitation; another Zion where he dwells and rests; another Zion where he blesses the provision, and that provision is Christ; and he blessed him forever, he has blessed him; another Zion, where her priests are spiritually clothed with salvation; where the horn of David shall never cease to bud, if we take the word there to mean the flourishing of Christ's power; where the lamp of salvation shall never be quenched. Thus, while Christ was retained in that kingdom, while he was there in that order of things that I have not now time even to refer to; there, just in proportion as he was respected, that people prospered; that is the mountain he formed a part of; and he was severed from that mountain; Jeremiah saw the desolation of the kingdom, and he saw it under feelings of great solemnity. Oh, what a mercy for us friends that we have a better covenant, a better kingdom. And yet men now a days will bring old covenant language and try to persuade us that that is gospel. We know better than that, some of us, yes! yes! bring in the exhortation, “O Israel, why will you die?” Why, that has nothing to do with new covenant matters, friends, nothing whatever. The Lord Jesus Christ never said to any of his disciples, Oh dear, why will you die? Why will you die? Oh, no! oh, no! no such language as that there. His language is “Because I live, you shall live also;” I will take care of that. And therefore, what Jeremiah said of the old kingdom, that has waxed old and passed away, will never be true of the everlasting kingdom, “I beheld,” he says, “and the earth was without form and void;” that is, that order of things that God had instituted was disorganized, and became emptied of the blessing of the Lord. “I beheld the mountains, and they trembled.” The mountains are there represented as doing what the people did not do; people were too hardened.to tremble; they could mock and despise him, and scorn him, and say, “Crucify him, crucify him;” while the very mountains, in contrast to man's adamantine heart, are represented as trembling; the mountains trembled, and the hills moved; men were not moved except to scoff, to mock, and to scorn. “I beheld, and lo, there was no man;” no, the man was gone, the God Man was gone, the Holy Man was gone; the Righteous Man was gone; “There was no man; and all the birds of the heavens were fled.” Who were these birds of the heavens, but the people of God, that are compared to birds? they were, fled, and left the land desolate. Is anyone part of this true of Christ's kingdom? It was true of his temporal kingdom, out not of his eternal kingdom.
Thus, then is Christ the Stone of Memorial. He once formed a part of the Jewish kingdom; but he was cut from that mountain. I hope next Sunday morning to show how he was cut out from it, and how he was transferred to another, and what his work is there.