AT THE SURREY TABERNACLE, BOROUGH ROAD
“And you shall leave your name for a curse unto my chosen; for the Lord God shall slay you and call his servants by another name.” Isaiah 65:15
ELECTION is an election of persons and of character. First, election is an election of persons. We read of persons being chosen in Christ Jesus; and those that were chosen in Christ Jesus were chosen in him, as you learn in the word of God, before the foundation of the world. But then besides this personal election there is an election of character; that is to say, all whom the Lord has chosen and ordained to eternal life; being called by his grace in consequence of their having been originally chosen, and also in consequence of their being redeemed; founded upon these, as well as other distinctions, such as his love to them, they are brought by the Holy Ghost into that knowledge of the truth, into that love of the truth, into that belief of the truth, into that decision for the truth, and into that fellowship with God, and become, as the Savior prayed, sanctified by the truth; and they thus become distinguished from others by those characteristics which the Lord put upon them. And these are often spoken of as the persons that are chosen. Several of the parables are founded upon this election of character; as you see in the case of the one that said he would go into the vineyard, but did not go; the other said he would not go, but he afterwards repented and went; showing that the one was not a partaker of grace, and the other was. So, you find the wise and foolish virgins; so, the laborer's, those that murmured and those that did not murmur; you find the Savior connect with such parables such words as these, that “many are called, but few are chosen.” There is choice, you see, friends, of character; but then that choice of character is the consequence of the choice of persons; for if their persons had not been originally chosen in Christ Jesus, then they would not have been called, or brought out of the kingdom of Satan into the kingdom of God's dear Son. Hence it is written, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore, in loving-kindness have I drawn you;” drawn you into that love. And that man that is chosen in Christ will be drawn by the same grace into that electing grace; the man that is redeemed will be brought by redeeming grace into the knowledge of that redemption; and the man for whom Christ lived will be brought into the knowledge of the righteousness that Christ has wrought; the man who is included in the New Testament, that is, the new covenant, the testamentary will of the blessed God, will in the Lord's own time be brought into that covenant, into the bond of that covenant, into that order of things; and will thus become distinguished from others. And thus, then, the infinite, to us, and everlasting importance of character. We have, then, in our text a solemn distinction of character; here are some men of whom our text says, “you shall leave your name for a curse unto my chosen; for the Lord God shall slay you, and call his servants by another name.” Our text, then, presents itself simply in a two-fold form. I shall in the first place try to describe to you that character which the Lord rejects, according to the language of our text; that is, if that man live and die in that character, that man is a lost man and then, when I have done that, I will try and describe the character which he receives; though that will partly come in the contrast as we go along; and then we will notice the contrastive nomination here intended; “he shall call his servants by another name.”
First. First then THE CHARACTER WHOM THE LORD WILL REJECT. “You shall leave your name for a curse unto my chosen.” The meaning of course will be that the persons whom I choose to serve me, as those who are partakers of my spirit, as those who are obedient children, walking in the obedience of faith, they shall see that you are left under the law, and that you are cursed, and they shall see that your dreadful destiny is to be slain; and they shall see that I have put a difference thus between the Egyptians and Israel, between the just and the unjust, between the holy and the unholy, between the clean and the unclean. But first the character that is here to be rejected. There is a four-fold feature that I will notice given of this character in the word of the Lord in this chapter. The first is the Lord says, “You are they that forsake the Lord” “that forsake Jehovah.” You must understand that the prophet is here speaking to the Israelites, to God's national people; we must keep that idea up, or else we shall not rightly understand as we go along the Scriptures, upon this matter. He is here speaking of the people whom he had taken into temporal covenant relationship with himself; he had brought them out of Egypt, had sustained them through the wilderness, had become their God, and they had become his people. I admit all this was temporal but still it has a spiritual and ultimate meaning. Now these persons who thus apostatized from Jehovah are a type of nominal Christians; they are a type of those Christians, who profess the truth for a time, and then go from it; but they are also a type of those professed Christians that join apostate churches, whose very religion is the spirit of apostasy; I say, whose very religion is the spirit of apostasy. And, only think of it for a moment, that while we hold religion to be the great remedy for our woe, only imagine for a moment that if you possess a religion not only that is not a remedy for your sins, not only that is not the justification of your soul, not only that cannot save the, soul; but that you possess a religion that constitutes the worst part of your sin; that you possess a religion that is more offensive to the great God than all those departments that you would call your sins; so that so far from your religion being a remedy for sin, it is the worst part of your sin; it is that which makes your mind bitter against God's truth. It was not profanity that crucified the Savior; it was the religion of the Pharisees; it was that religion which they held to be the remedy for their woe; whereas their religion was a worse malady; as we sometimes say, and there it is most terribly and fearfully realized, the remedy was worse than the disease, I make these remarks in order that we may not trifle with this part of our subject. Now they forsook Jehovah; and in connection with that the Lord says, “You forget my holy mountain.” “You are they, that forsake Jehovah, that forget my holy mountain.” The holy mountain there refers of course to mount Zion; and has reference specially to the sacrificial service; and this they forsook. And yet with all the laws of that service there was a great simplicity about it. I will give only one idea, one main idea, in this department, to point put the character. You are aware, that all the sacrifices of that mount Zion which these people forgot, and which they forsook, that all the sacrifices of that dispensation were to be spotless. Take that one idea, only that one truth. Now then the Lord Jesus Christ has put away sin by the sacrifice of himself; and by him all that believe are complete; they are by his atonement without blemish, without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. Election put them there, and fixed them there; and Christ has confirmed them there; and the Holy Ghost when he becomes the teacher, he teaches them so much of the depravity of their hearts, of the entire nothingness of the creature, makes them feel to be such poor nothings, except that of sin and sinfulness, that they feel they have no way of escape but by the spotlessness, the eternal spotlessness, of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now then, those whom the Lord would slay were persons that forsook this, that perverted this, that made light of this sacrificial service; “You are they that forsake the Lord, that forget my holy mountain.” I hinted just now that if we describe the character that God would slay, we must necessarily describe in a measure the character whom the Lord would not slay. Is it any wonder there should be such enmity between the two seeds? Is it any wonder that there should be such a difference and such a distance between the two characters? Here is a poor sinner cleaving to the finished work of the Savior, and to the immutability of the counsel of God, as revealed by that finished work of Chris; here is a poor sinner cleaving to him; and while others are making a wonderful noise about creature doings, all creature doings, all the effort, and doings, of the creature, this poor sinner recognizes in these noises not anything that can do his soul good; he cannot see Christ in these noises, and he does not hear Christ in these noises; he does not find that mediatorial perfection in these noises and doings which this poor sinner is brought to feel his need of. You cleave to that; and see and feel, and know you have no other hope, what is the result? Immediately you are cast out as evil, immediately all sorts of evil sayings, evil surmising's, and evil speeches, and hard speeches will be thrown at you; and if you could live like an angel, and perform infinitely more good works than you do, they would be thought nothing of; but if there be a little something omitted, yes, only one little sin of omission, it will by the malice of your enemies be made up into I don't know what. So that in all ages the people of God have been hated of all men for truth's sake. Now I say that a poor sinner, who feels what he is, he is not ashamed to own that his daily life, his daily comforts, his daily hope, his daily access to God, and all the expectation he has of the Lord ever appearing for him, is simply by this completeness that is in Crist; as independent of the creature, I was going to say, as though the creature did not exist. This is real religion, and this is that which they forsook. Now my hearer, if your experience be not that, that makes you so loathsome in your own sight as to make you prize Jehovah in his eternal counsels, and make you prize this mount Zion, where the Lord has commanded the blessing even life for evermore; if your experience be not of that kind, then I only say, this, that you will leave your name for a curse unto God's chosen: the Lord God shall slay you, and call his servants by another name. One feature then of being among the lost is being averse to this sacrificial perfection, being averse to that eternal completeness that is in Christ. Yes, I must go nearer than that, you must not be indifferent about it; you must not be careless about it, you must not trifle with it, you must not think lightly of it; you must not take anything else for gospel; what little gospel you do get must be in that way, must be by that; you must have a hope nowhere else; everything must come entirely by him. Again, another feature of those persons is their turning a deaf ear to the truth. The Lord says, “When I called, you did not answer; when I spoke, you did not hear; but did evil before my eyes, and did choose that where in I delighted not.” What is the meaning of this? Who is the Lord speaking to now? Was he here speaking to the heathen nations around? and saying to the heathen nations as some men now say to the carnal man, the ungodly, the non-professing man, a minister stands up, and says, God is calling to you to come to him, and you will not answer; God is speaking, and you will not hear? The minister that says that is telling lies in the name of the Lord. The ministers, and there are legions of them in our day, that stand up and tell the people that Jesus Christ is inviting them to come, that God is calling them to come, and wishing them to come; these men to a man are telling lies in the name of the Lord; such men know not the truth; such men are perverters of the gospel; such men are false apostles, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ; and no marvel for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light; no marvel, therefore, if his ministers be transformed as ministers of righteousness. They are telling lies in the name of the Lord. It does not mean the heathen around then; the meaning is this; the persons there spoken to were Israelites, that had been taken into temporal covenant with God; and now the Lord says, If you will walk with me on certain conditions, you shall have certain advantages. Just so now; here is a man that professes to be a Christian and on the ground of his profession. Sir, I tell you of election, that calls to you on the ground of your profession. Ah, I don't like election. I know that; there is a covenant ordered in all things and sure, sir, and a people included in that covenant, to be eternally saved; not one more nor one less; and while men are telling us that some are gone to hell through the neglect of ministers, they are telling us lies; it is a lie; and that shall go forth just as I have said it; and while some are making out that a great many more would be in heaven but for the neglect of ministers, it is a lie from the bottomless pit; and so is any doctrine that takes the salvation of a sinner in whole or in part out of the hands of the great God. Who then is the man to whom the Lord is calling but who does not answer? The man that professes to be a Christian, and at the same time cannot endure the truth; the man that professes to belong to God, and at the same time hates the truth of God. Hence the Savior came to his own; they were his own by profession, they professed to belong to God. Very well, he says, if you belong to God, why do you not believe in him? I am sent of God; I came from God; I do the works of God; I am come to establish the counsel of God, to carry out the will of God; if you belong to God, why do you not believe him whom God has sent? But I know the secret; the Savior opened up the secret “You believe not because you are not of my sheep.” Now my hearer, the ingenious device of the present day that Satan has in general custom is to separate Christ from the truth and men will in their blindness, ignorance, and deception, tell us, never mind about doctrine; never mind doctrine; sever Christ from the truth. Why the Lord says to these professors, “When I called you did not answer; when I spoke you did not hear;” but you chose something else; you have chosen other gods, burnt incense to other gods; you have adopted other rules; and “therefore I will number you to the sword; you shall leave your name as a curse unto my chosen; for the Lord God shall slay you.” Beware then for on the ground of your profession, all of you, I just give this warning this morning; as the apostle says, “I warned every one of you;” beware then, that you are not one of those that sever the truth of Christ from Christ; beware that you are not one of those who think that because you take the name of Christ, and have a love to a Christ of your own making, that you are thereby authorized to set aside that truth which describes the order of his sacrifice, the order of his kingdom, and the order of eternal salvation. These are the characters. First then they forgot the Lord's holy mountain; second, they put that asunder which he had joined together; namely himself and his truth. “You shall leave your name for a curse unto my chosen.” Such persons are under the law; and that is the reason they hate the gospel; they do not know they are under the law, and they won't own they are under the law; they cannot own it because they do not see it nor feel it; but the law works wrath and such persons cannot endure the gospel. The third feature of these persons who shall be lost if they die in that state; that is if you die unacquainted, and without being brought into real experimental love to God by the sacrificial perfection of Christ; if you die with a fancied faith in Christ, and at the same time having put off his truth; that when God calls, you do not answer; that when he speaks, you have no desire to hear, you won't hear such ministers; if you die there, you will be lost, depend upon it; your device will not save you; your severing the truth from Christ will sever your soul from God; or rather demonstrate that your soul was never rightly united to him.
Another feature of these persons is very remarkable, which you get in the 5th verse. Now would you believe it? here is a man that stands somewhat opposed to, at least, he makes light of that perfection that is in Christ; he severs one part and if he severs but that one part, that perverts the gospel; the alteration of one tach or loop in the tabernacle would have altered the whole; and the alteration of one part, however small, of the ark that Noah built, would have made it cease to be the ark of the Most High. And so, these very persons who thus make light of that perfection that is in Christ, and separate in whole or in part the truth of Christ from Christ himself, of course the natural consequence follows. In the 5th verse of this chapter, what is the language of that man? Ah, well, I don't like to say much upon that sacrificial perfection; I like to dwell more upon practice. You like to hear it talked about, you hypocrite; you don't like to do it. I know you. I don't like men to dwell so much upon doctrine; preach Jesus, that's quite enough. Ah, you hypocrite, you can't bear the truth, that's the bottom of it. What is the language of the heart of such a one? “Stand by yourself, come not near to me, for I am holier than you.” That is the language. Now I defy all the men in the world, I defy you all, I defy any man, to bring one instance from the Bible wherein the Pharisees of old ever acknowledged that Jesus Christ was a holy person. I will give the devil his due, he did so; he did say, “We know who you are; you are the Holy One of God.” But the Pharisees, did they ever acknowledge Christ was holy? Did they ever acknowledge that he was righteous? Did they ever acknowledge he was good? Did they ever do so? Why, their language was, “Stand by, you are a wine-bibber; stand by, you are a gluttonous man; stand by, you are a friend of publicans and harlots; stand by, you are an Antinomian; we have all the holiness and the righteousness.” Now, my hearers, if Pharisaism called the Master of the House Beelzebub, where absolute perfection dwelt, how much more they of his household, where infirmities daily and hourly appear? So, it is a solemn truth, that you never once find them own the Savior was a holy man. Well but, say you, look when he died. Ah, but that was forced work. Judas said, “I have betrayed the innocent blood.” That was not voluntary, that was under the pressure of terror. And Pilate's wife said, “Have nothing to do with that Just Man;” but that was under the pressure of a dream. And Pilate said, “I find no fault in him;” but that was under compulsion, because he could not; he tried hard enough; and the Centurion said, “Truly, this was a righteous man;” ah, but there was the work of the Holy Ghost, convincing him of what Christ was. And the thief on the cross said, “This man has done nothing amiss;” but which of the two thieves said so? Did they both say so? No. Not all the agonies of the torturous death they were dying could slay the enmity of their hearts; they both cast the same in his teeth; they both reviled him, and reckoned him to be the worst malefactor of the three, until mercy reached the heart of one, opened his blind eyes, and gave that poor thief to see and feel what a vile wretch he was, what a lost sinner he was, what a condemned soul he was, and that the person by his side was the Son of God, a righteous man, a holy man, the God-man, the mediatorial man, God's right hand man; and that he was pouring out his precious blood for the redemption of perishing sinners; that he was about to enter into an eternal kingdom, and there plead in heaven the blood that he shed on earth, in order to bring poor sinners there; and the Holy Ghost led that poor thief to put the matter as it were then and there to the test, “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” “This day,” such is the efficacy of my blood, such the completeness of my work, such the perfection of my righteousness, such the stability of my counsels, such the achievement of my cross, such the omnipotence of my arm, such the clearness of my mind, I see you are one whose name is in the Lamb's fair book set down; I have felt the agonies for you due to your sin, “Today shall you be with me in paradise;” and so he was. I must ask nobody; I won't be responsible to anybody; I will say just what I think, and ask no man under heaven; nor would I be dictated to, nor hardly even spoken to, on these matters; no. But I say this, I defy you to find one duty-faith minister under the whole canopy of heaven that lives up to one half of what he preaches; it is impossible he can do it. What is all their wonderful noise about fleshly perfection, what is it all about? Why, it is all noise, nine-tenths noise. “Stand by, I am holier than you;” You say you are, but how do I know that? I think I am? You think you are! If you are holier than I am, where do you get it from, then? Not from yourself, for you are nothing but a sink of sin; not from the law, for that ministers no holiness, it ministers nothing but wrath and death; not from others, for I am sure there is no such thing as inoculation in that matter, nor supererogation, nor transfusion. Ah, I get it from Christ. You get it from Christ! You have nothing to do with Christ; he never received a righteous man yet, nor a holy man; he never received anything but sinners; never did and never will. You get your holiness from Christ! You have nothing to do with him; you are a stranger to him. It is the sick, not the whole, that that Great Physician takes in hand; he came to seek and to save that which was lost. If Jesus Christ were on earth now, he would be reckoned by your free-will and duty-faith men to be an Antinomian. The same epithets that were cast at his person are still cast at his truth, and at his people too.
Thus, then, the character, that shall be lost is the man that slights this mediatorial perfection; is the man that severs Christ from the truth; who is looking with contempt upon the tried child of God, the tried lover of the truth, who has been knocked about on life's tempestuous main, and has felt a great many weaknesses that the Pharisee never felt, and has encountered many trials that the Pharisee has never yet had to encounter; because the world is one with the Pharisee, and he is one with the world; the devil is one with him, and he is one with the devil and the Pharisee in this world, therefore, is at home; the child of God is not at home. The Pharisee looks at the child of God; passes by all his excellencies, fastens upon some infirmity, and says, “Stand by yourself, I am holier than you.” Where are you, my hearer, this morning? Are you a poor, trembling, selfloathing sinner at the feet of Jesus, looking with earnest looks to God, and acknowledging before him that but for that perfection that is in Christ you must be damned to all eternity? Or, are you lifting up yourself above God's truth, or do you bless him for his truth, and that you would not have Christ and the truth separated from each other for a thousand worlds? for these living truths, yea and amen truths by him, are the very food of your soul? Third, are you looking upon what men call the hypers, and saying, “Stand by yourself, I am holier than you?” Or are you, on the other hand, saying, Oh no, oh no, so far from that being the case, I hope I am where the apostle was when he said, “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief? “Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall delver me from the body of this death?”
SECOND. After thus describing in a measure, the character that shall be lost; that is, if you die making light of the Gospel feast, the mediatorial perfection of Christ, there is the feast, if you die severing Christ from the truth; if you die with, “Stand by yourself, I am holier than you,” you are a lost man, and you will be slain to all hope and all help, and be lost to all eternity. I now go to the last part of our subject: “He shall call his servants by another name;” that is the one shall be called by a name which his sin gives him; and the other shall be called by a name which salvation gives him, or which the Gospel gives him. You read of the people of God, that they are all named after Christ. What is the name then that these persons will be called by? Why, the name that sin gives them. And what is that? Dogs, “Without are dogs.” Look at that. You think you have some holiness, do you? You think you have some goodness of your own, do you? You can let your mouth run against the heavens, can you? You can join to degrade the people of God, can you? You can sever Christ from the truth, can you; and pique yourself on your own supposed goodness? Ah, you, dying in that state, will be treated at the judgment day as a dog. “Without are dogs;” and sorcerer, that shall be your name, whoremonger, idolater, liar, viper, serpent; ah, these are the awful names that sin gives. Ah, to die as a dog, to die as a sorcerer, to die as a whoremonger, to die as an idolater, to die as a liar, as a viper, as a serpent, as those that are rejected, reprobates; these are awful names. I ought not, I certainly ought not to pass by the solemn fact, that awful as these names are, they are names that belong to us all by nature; they are names, awful as they are, by which a righteous God may justly and eternally nominate everyone. If we have before God any name better than the awful names I have repeated, then, if we have a better name that better name is a gift, “To him that overcomes,” and he that overcomes must overcome by faith in the perfect work of Christ, “will I give a white stone” that is the gift, a sight, and sense of pardon, “and in the stone a new name written, which no man knows, saving he that receives it.” Oh, what a difference between the names that sin gives us and the name that salvation gives us! When I come to salvation names, then it is not a sinner, but a saint; not unrighteousness, but righteous; not unholy, but holy; not a dog, nor a sorcerer, but a king and a priest unto God; not a child of wrath, but an heir of salvation, an heir of eternal life, an heir of the kingdom, an heir of eternal glory; in a word, they are named after him; the whole family in heaven and earth named after the Lord Jesus Christ. Ah, my hearers, if we die in a good name, it must be the good name of Jesus Christ. That is the good name, that is better than precious ointment. Hence you recollect that the Lord, in giving the blessing with which the priests were to bless the children of Israel, closes thus, “And they shall put my name upon the children of Israel; and I will bless them.” And you know that great scripture upon this subject that we have often dwelt upon before, which we cannot omit naming now. I mean that in Jeremiah; “This is the name wherewith she,” the church, “shall be called; Jehovah our righteousness.” Ah, look at the name by which the harlot of Babylon is called; and then look at the name by which the bride is nominated; that bride “looking forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners;” all fair, without spot. “This is the name wherewith she shall be called; Jehovah our righteousness.” Now there are but two names, then, the law name, and the Gospel name. Under the law we have all that evil name and same that sin gives us; but if redeemed from the curse of the law, if brought from under the law to receive the adoption of sons, then the Lord calls us by a new name. We have, as you are aware, several instances in the Scriptures of new names being given; Jacob changed for Israel, and Simon changed for Peter; and various other instances; all expressive of the same thing; that he should call his servants by another name. And that name which the Lord gives to his people entitles them to something. “My servant shall eat;” they do not say, “our soul loathes this light bread;” to them it is not light bread, but food convenient for them. “My servant shall eat, but you shall be hungry; my servant shall drink, but you shall be thirsty; my servants shall rejoice, but you shall be ashamed; my servants shall sing for joy of heart, but you shall cry for sorrow of heart, and shall howl for vexation of spirit.” But does not the reverse of this appear very often? Why, says the poor, tried believer, so far from the world being hungry, the mere professor being hungry, and not eating, it is I who am hungry, and not eating; so far from my drinking, and his being thirsty, why, he is drinking, and I am thirsty; so far from my rejoicing, and he being put to shame, why, it is he that is rejoicing, and trying to put me to shame; and so far from my being glad of heart, why, I have hardly anything but sorrow; so far from his howling for vexation of spirit, he seems far from that; there are no bands in his life, and no bands in his death. Ah, but you must understand it rightly; the time is not come yet; his hunger time is not come yet, his thirst time is not come yet; he is not in hell yet; his promotion to shame is not yet arrived. Blessed are they that weep now; mark that, for they shall laugh. Woe unto them that laugh now at God's truth, for they shall weep. Woe unto you that are full now, that have no room for God's gospel; for you shall hunger; woe unto you that are rich now in your own concert; for you shall lie down in eternal privation. So, then there must be waiting; blessed are they that wait. We may have to hunger much, and thirst much, and endure much shame and much sorrow; yet the blessing is upon them that are thus tried; and the time shall come when these poor in spirit shall possess the kingdom, and the rich be cast out; when those that mourn shall be exalted, and the laughers at God's truth shall be cast down; when those that are humbled down at the Savior's feet shall enter into rest; the others shall come under all the burdens of their sins; when those that hunger and thirst after righteousness shall be filled. The Lord enable us, then, still to prize sacrificial perfection, still to hold Christ and the truth as one; and still to esteem others better than ourselves.