The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol. 30

AT MENTONE, BEFORE THE COMMUNION, TO A SMALL COMPANY
OF BELIEVERS.

IT was a stranger, and ye took me in.”’ — Matthew xxv. 35. “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God,

even to them that believe on his name.’’ — John i. 12.

I LATELY received a New Year’s card, which suggested to me the topic on which I am about to speak to you. The designer of the card has, with holy insight, seen the relation of the two texts to each other, and rendered both of them eminently suggestive by placing them together. There is freshness in the thought that, by receiving Jesus as a stranger, our believing hospitality works in us a divine capacity and we thereby receive power to become the sons of God. The connection suggested between the two inspired words is really existent, and by no means strained or fanciful, as you will see by reading the context of the passage in John: “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.” So he was a stranger in the world which he himself had made. ‘“He came unto his own, and his own received him not.” So he was a stranger among the people whom he had set apart for his own by many deeds of mercy. ‘“But as many as received him,” — that is to say, gave entertainment to this blessed stranger — “to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.” I thought that this might prove to be a suitable and salutary passage to discourse upon at the beginning of a New Year, for this isa season of hospitality, and some among our friends will think it well to commence a New Year by saying to the Lord Jesus, “Come in, thou blessed of the Lord; wherefore standest thou without?” This divine stranger has knocked at many doors, till his head is wet with dew, and his locks with the drops of the night; and now I trust there are some who will rise up and open unto him, so that at the end of the year they may say with Job, “The stranger did not lodge in the street: but I opened my doors to the traveller.” Verily, in so doing, you will not only entertain angels unawares; but you will be receiving the Lord of angels. The day in which you receive him shall be the beginning of years to you; it shall be the first of a series of years, which, whether they be few or many, shall be each one in the best sense happy.

Nos. 1757-8-9.

I would say a few words, first, about the stranger taken in; and then, about the stranger making strangers into sons.

I. THE STRANGER TAKEN IN: this is a simile given to us by our Lord himself: a royal metaphor presented to us from his own throne. Note that the passage begins, “I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink;” these are two good works which prove faith in Jesus and love to him, and therefore they are accepted, recorded, and rewarded; but it is a distinct and memorable growth when it comes to, “I was a stranger, and ye took me in.” House-room is a larger gift than refreshment at the door. It is good believingly to do anything for Christ, however small; but it is a much better thing to give entertainment to Jesus within our souls, admitting him into our minds and hearts. We have not come to the full of what our Lord has a right to expect of us till, having given from our stores. to him, by benefiting his poor and aiding his cause, we deliberately open the doors of our entire being to him, and instal him in our souls as an honoured guest. We must not be satisfied with giving him cups of cold water, or morsels of bread; but we must “constrain him, saying, Abide with us.” Our hearts must be Bethanies, where, like Mary, and Martha, and Lazarus, we give our Master gladsome welcome: houses of Obed-edom, where the ark of the Lord may dwell in peace. Our prayer must be that of Abraham, “My Lord, if now I have found favour in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant.”

The uppermost word of our text is stranger, and its light casts a hue of strangeness over the whole passage. Here are three strange things. The first is, that the Lord Jesus should be a stranger here below. Is it not a strange thing that “he was in the world, and the world was made by him,” and yet he was a stranger init? Yet is it not a whit more strange than true; for when he was born there was no room for him in the inn. Inns had open doors for ordinary strangers, but not for him ;. for he was a greater stranger than any around him. It was Bethlehem of David, the seat of the ancient family to which he belonged; but alas! he had become “a stranger unto his brethren, and an alien unto his mother’s children,” and no door was opened unto him. Soon there was no safe room for him in the village itself, for Herod the king sought the young child’s life, and he must flee into Egypt, to be a stranger ina strange land, and worse than a stranger — an exile and a fugitive from the land whereof by birthright he was king. On his return, and on his public appearing, there was still no room for him among the mass of the people. He came to his own Israel, to whom prophets had revealed him, and types had set him forth; but they would have none of him. “He was despised and rejected of men.” He was the man “whom men abhorred;” whom they so much detested that they cried, “Away with him! Crucify him! Crucify him!” Yea, the world so little knew him that they must needs hang up the Lord of glory on a cross, and put “the Holy One and the Just” to a felon’s death. Jew and Gentile alike conspired to prove how truly he was a stranger; the Jew said, “As for this fellow, we know not from whence he is;” and the Roman asked him, “Whence art thou?” Now, that Christ should be such a stranger was indeed a sadly singular thing, and yet we need not wonder, for how should a wicked, selfish world know Jesus or receive him? The Lord’s own had been forewarned of this in ancient type, for long before the Lord appeared in the flesh he had shown himself as a stranger to the faithful. He came in angelic form to Abraham, and thus we read the story: ‘And he lift up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground. And said, My Lord, if now I have found favour in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant: Let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree: and I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye your hearts.” The Lord, who stands out in the centre of the three, was a stranger, and the father of the faithful entertained him, in type of what all the faithful of every age will do. This is he of whom Jeremiah said, “‘O the hope of Israel, the Saviour thereof in time of trouble, why shouldest thou be as a stranger in the land, and as a wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry for a night?” Yet with this fair warning it still remains sadly singular that, coming on anerrand of mercy, our Lord should find so scant a welcome; should be so little known, so seldom recognized, so harshly entreated. Truly as Egypt made Israel to serve with rigour, so have we made this patient stranger to serve with our sins, and wearied him with our iniquities. The Son of man had not where to lay his head. Luke says the barbarians showed Paul and his friends no little kindness: but men were worse than barbarians to their Saviour. Shall the servant be better treated than his Master, or the disciple than his Lord? “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.”

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