The stone which the builders rejected.
Redemption a marvellous work
I. It is God’s work.
1. Contrary to intentions or acts of the builders.
2. No one else competent to perform it.
II. It is a marvellous work.
1. From extent of agency employed.
2. Divine attributes displayed.
3. Demerit of its objects.
4. Number and extent of its benefits-
(a) wrath removed;
(b) reconciliation and peace;
(c) access to God;
(d) adoption;
(e) sanctified nature;
(f) eternal life. Learn-
(1) this work challenges our trust;
(2) requires thought;
(3) Demands unceasing praise. (Preacher’s Portfolio.)
It will grind him to powder:-Penalty of unbelief
I remember, away up in a lonely Highland valley, where beneath a tall black cliff, all weather-worn and cracked and seamed, there lies at the foot, resting on the green sward that creeps round its base, a huge rock that has fallen from the face of the precipice. A shepherd was passing beneath it, and suddenly, when the finger of God’s will touched it, and rent it from its bed in the everlasting rock, it came down, leaping and bounding from pinnacle to pinnacle, and it fell; and the man who was beneath it is there now! “It will grind him to powder.’”… Therefore I say to you, since all that stand against Him shall become “as the chaff of the summer threshing-floor,” and be swept utterly away, make Him the foundation on which you build, and when the storm sweeps away every refuge of lies you will be safe and serene, builded upon the Rock of Ages. (Dr. McLaren)
Judgment and mercy
I. The greatest judgment which can ever befall a people is taking the kingdom of God from them. The kingdom of God was taken by the Jews themselves for some peculiar and temporal blessings which those who enjoyed it had above all other people. It was taken by our Saviour for a clearer manifestation of the will of God to the world, and the consequence of that in the hearts of good men, and all the spiritual blessings which do attend it. So that the taking away the kingdom of God from them must needs be the heaviest judgment which could befall a people, since it implies in it the taking away all the greatest temporal and spiritual blessings. Jews make the kingdom of God to consist
(1) in deliverance of them from their enemies;
(2) in the flourishing of their state, or that polity which God established among them;
(3) in the solemn worship of Him at the temple.
All these were taken away. Take the kingdom of God in the sense our Saviour meant-the power of the gospel-and the judgment is yet more evident.
1. It is acknowledged by the Jews themselves that these great calamities have happened to them for some extraordinary sins.
2. The sin ought to be looked on as so much greater by how much heavier and longer this punishment hath been than any inflicted on them before.
3. The Jews have not suffered these calamities for the same sins for which they suffered before.
4. It must be some sin which their fathers committed, and which continues yet unrepented of by them to this day.
There were these remarkable forerunners of desolation in the Jewish state which I am afraid we are too much concerned in.
1. A strange degeneracy of all sorts of men from the virtues of their ancestors.
2. A general stupidity and inapprehensiveness of common danger.
3. An atheistical contempt of religion.
4. Spiritual pride.
II. The greatest mercy that can ever be vouchsafed to a nation is God’s giving His kingdom to it. (Bishop Stilligfleet.)
The head stone of the corner
The Jews were the first builders to whom God gave the privilege to build His Church. Three things the corner-stone is to the builder’s work-
1. The structure ranges up to the corner-stone. All else is below, that it may be high; all ministers to it. Abase yourself that Christ may be exalted.
2. The whole fabric holds up the head of the corner to the view of men that it may be admired. Take care that the aspect which your religion wears to every man is not yourself, but Christ.
3. Let Christ, as the stone does the corner, bind everything. He is the one cementing all that is true. Whatever is in Christ, though it be repugnant to your feelings, do not send it away from you. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
The stone of stumbling
The two clauses of the text figuratively point to two different classes of operation-in the one case the stone is represented as passive, lying quiet; in the other, it has got motion. In the one case, it is a self-inflicted, remedial injury; in the other, it is total and judicial.
I. Every man has some kind of connection with Christ. The gospel must influence every man somehow; it is an element in our present civilization. Christ does something to every one of us. He is either the rock on which I build or a stone of stumbling.
II. The immediate issue of rejection of him is loss and maiming-“Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken.” The positive harm. No man ever yet passively rejected Christ; there is always a slight struggle with right before living away. So that every man who rejects Christ wounds his own conscience, hardens his own heart, makes himself a worse man. By the natural result of his unbelief his nature “ shall be broken.” I need not dwell on the negative evil results of unbelief; we fail to possess the great Jove of God by which only we are made what we ought to be. Not only by the act of rejection of Christ do we maim ourselves, but also all attempts of opposition to the gospel as a system stand self-convicted-“Whosoever falls on this stone shall be broken.”
III. The ultimate issue of unbelief is irremediable destruction when Christ begins to move. The former clause has spoken about the passive operation of unbelief whilst the gospel is being preached; this about the active agency of Christ, “It shall grind him to powder.” (A. McLaren, D. D.)