Spurgeon: Sermons on Proverbs (33 page)

Come then, let me make a personal application of the matter and I have done. If this be true, hypocrite, what a fool thou art! If God can read the heart, O man, what a sorry, sorry thing thy fair pretense must be! Ah! ah! ah! what a change will come over some of you! This world is a masquerade, and ye, many of you, wear the mask of religion. Ye dance your giddy hours, and men think you to be the saints of God. How changed will you be when at the door of eternity you must drop the visor, and must announce the theatricals in which you live! How you will blush when the paint is washed from off your cheek--when you stand before God naked to your own shame, a hypocrite, unclean, diseased, covered up before with the gew-gaws and the trickery of pretended formality in religion, but now standing there, base, vile, and hideous! There is many a man that bears about him a cancer that would make one sick to see. Oh, how shall hypocrites look when their cancerous hearts are laid bare! Deacon! how you will tremble when your old heart is torn open and your vile pretences rent away! Minister! how black you will look when your surplice is off, and when your grand pretensions are cast to the dogs! How will you tremble! There will be no sermonizing others then. You yourself will be preached to, and the sermon shall be from that text, "Depart ye cursed." O brethren, above all things shun hypocrisy. If ye mean to be damned, make up your minds to it and be damned like honest men; but do not I beseech you pretend to go to heaven while all the time you are going to hell. If ye mean to make your abodes in torment forever, then serve the devil and do not be ashamed of it; stand it right out and let the world know what you are. But oh! never put on the cloak of religion. I beseech you, do not add to your eternal misery being a wolf in sheep's clothing. Show the cloven foot; do not hide it. If you mean to go to hell, say so. "If God be God, serve him. If Baal be God, serve him." Do not serve Baal and then pretend to be serving God.

One other practical conclusion. If God sees and knows everything, how this ought to make you tremble--you that have lived in sin for many years! I have known a man who was once stopped from an act of sin by the fact of there being a cat in the room. He could not bear even the eyes of that poor creature to see him. Oh, I would ye could carry about with you the recollection of those eyes that are always on you. Swearer! could you swear if you could see God's eye looking at you? Thief! drunkard! harlot! could ye indulge in your sins if ye saw his eyes on you? Oh, methinks they would startle you and bid you pause before ye did in God's own sight rebel against his law. There is a story told of the American War, that one of the prisoners taken by the Americans was subjected to a torture of the most refined character. He says, "I was put into a narrow dungeon; I was comfortably provided for with all I needed; but there was a round slit in the wall, and through that, both night and day, a soldier always looked at me." He says, "I could not rest, I could not eat nor drink, nor do anything in comfort because there was always that eye --an eye that seemed never to be turned away and never shut --always following me round that little
apartment. Nothing ever hidden from it." Now take home that figure. Recollect that is your position; you are shut in by the narrow walls of time, when ye eat, and when ye drink, when ye rise, and when ye lie upon your beds; when ye walk the streets, or when ye sit at home, that eye is always fixed upon you. Go home now and sin against God if ye dare; go home now and break his laws to his face and despise him, and set him at nought! Rush on your own destruction; dash yourselves
against the buckler of Jehovah, and destroy your selves upon his own sword! Nay, rather, "turn ye, turn ye." Turn ye, ye that have followed the ways of sin, turn ye to Christ and live; and then the same
Omniscience which is now your horror shall be your pleasure. Sinner! if thou now dost pray, he seeth thee; if thou now dost weep he seeth thee. "When he was yet a great way off his father saw him, and ran, and fell on his neck and kissed him." It shall be even so with thee, if now thou turnest to God and dost believe in his Son Jesus Christ.

A sermon (No. 1948) delivered at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington,
by C. H. Spurgeon.

You must have noticed how frequently godly people almost wear out their Bibles in certain places. The Psalms, the Gospel of John, and parts of the Epistles are favourite portions, and are thumbed in many an old believer's Bible till the fact is very noticeable. There are certain sheep-tracks up the slopes of Scripture which are much more trodden than the rest of the holy fields. I suppose it has always been so, and I will not quarrel with the instincts of the saints.

I do however regret that any portion of Holy Writ should be neglected. There are Bible-readers who keep clear of the historical parts of Scripture, and also greatly avoid the Book of Proverbs: indeed, they almost wonder how Proverbs and Ecclesiastes come to be a part of the Word of God. Very singular it must seem to them that this Book of Proverbs should be placed so very near to Solomon's Song --that sacred canticle which is the center and climax of inspired Scripture: a book which I do not hesitate to call "the holy of holies"--the innermost sanctuary of divine love. Concerning that deeply mystical, mysterious, and rapturous canticle, it would be impossible to speak too highly: it is indeed the Song of songs --a song however which none can sing but such as are made songsters by God himself by partaking of the inspiration, not of the fount which gushed from Mount Parnassus, but of that fount of every blessing which flows from the mount of everlasting love. It is certainly remarkable that hard by such a deeply-spiritual Book there should be placed the Book of Proverbs, which mainly consists of instructions for this life. Doubtless there is a meaning in that arrangement. The Lord would not have the highest spirituality divorced from common-sense. God has made us body and soul, and he would have us serve him with both. There is a part of us that is material and there is a part that is spiritual; and both need guidance such as the Holy Spirit affords us in the inspired Book. The Lord Jesus Christ has redeemed us, not as to our soul alone, nor our spirit alone, but as to our body also; and he would have us recognize this fact.

While we are in the world we are not to regard ourselves as if we were pure spirits, having nothing to do with earth; but we are to look to our lower nature and our earthly surroundings, and order all these in accordance with the will of the Lord. It is not enough that our hearts are cleansed; our bodies are to be washed with pure water. We are in the world, and we must eat and drink and work and trade even as other men do; and all this must be as much brought under the rule of wisdom as our higher nature and its actions. The Christian's faith does not come to him merely to create holy raptures and heavenly emotions, but it comes to help him in the business of every day.

Grace is intended to sanctify all the relations of life. There is no necessity that a man who is wise unto salvation should in other respects be a fool; but the reverse should be constantly seen: sanctity should beget sagacity, and purity should be the mother of prudence. We are to make the common things of this world sacred to God, so that the bells of the horses may be as truly "Holiness unto the Lord" as was the mitre of the consecrated priest who served at the altar.

I pray my friends not to be so spiritual that they cannot do a good day's work, or give full measure, or sell honest wares. To my disgust I have known persons professing to have reached perfect purity who have done very dirty things. I have been suspicious of superfine spirituality since I knew one who took no interest in the affairs of this world, and yet speculated till he lost thousands of other people's money. Do not get to be so heavenly-minded that you cannot put up with the little vexations of the family; for we have heard of people of whom it was said that the sooner they went to heaven the better, for they were too disagreeable to live with below.

As the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ is meant for this world as well as for worlds to come, so the volume of Holy Scripture is fitly made to contain Proverbs as well as Psalms. I have been told, but I do not know how true it is, that Scotland owes very much of its practical shrewdness to the fact that the Book of Proverbs used to be printed in a small form, and was one of the first books read by all the children at the public schools. I can only say that if it was so, it showed much wisdom on the part of those who made the arrangement; and I have no doubt that if it were so still, it would be a clear gain to the rising generation. It is a right thing to have practical teaching in
connection with sound doctrine, and common-sense in conjunction with deep spirituality. Let the Gospels, and Psalms, and Prophets, and Epistles be your bread, and let the Book of Proverbs be your salt. Neglect neither the one nor the other.

I preach at this time from the word of Solomon which is now before us, and I shall not withhold from you its everyday meaning; but I shall also exhibit its higher lights, for I believe that there is not a moral truth in the Book of Proverbs which does not also wear a spiritual aspect. I shall try to show you that our text, while it has its temporal bearings, which we will not conceal, has beyond these its higher and spiritual teachings, with which we will conclude.

I. First then, take the text in its temporal bearings. It runs thus--"The way of the slothful man is as an hedge of thorns: but the way of the righteous is made plain."

Note then first of all that a slothful man is the opposite of a righteous man. In the text they are set in opposition. "The way of the slothful man" is placed in contrast, not with the way of the diligent man, but with "the way of the righteous," as if to show that the slothful man is the very opposite of being a righteous man. A sluggard is not a righteous man, and he cannot be, he misses a main part of rightness. It is very seldom that a sluggard is honest: he owes at least more labor to the world than he pays. He is guilty of sins of omission, for he fails in obedience to one of the laws laid upon manhood since the fall: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." He aspires to eat his bread without earning it: he would if he could eat bread for nought, or eat the bread for which others toil, and this verges upon coveting and stealing and generally leads up to one or both of these sins. The sluggard evades the common law of society; and equally does he offend against the rule which our apostle promulgated in the church: "If any would not work, neither should he eat." The sluggard is not righteous for he does not render to God according to the strength lent to him, nor to man according to the work assigned him. A slothful man is a soldier who would let others fight the battle of life while he lies under the baggage-wagon asleep, until rations are served out. He is a husbandman who only husbands his own strength, and would eat the grapes while others trim the vines. He would, if possible, be carried on his bed into the kingdom of heaven; he is much too great a lover of ease to go on pilgrimage over rough and weary ways. If the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence from others it will never suffer violence from him. He is too idle to be importunate, too slothful to be earnest.

He cannot be a righteous man for slothfulness leads to the neglect of duty in many ways, and very soon it leads to lying about those neglects of duty, and no liar can have a portion in heaven. Idleness is selfishness, and this is not consistent with the love of our neighbor, nor with any high degree of virtue. Every good thing withers in the drought of idleness. In fact, all kinds of vices are comprehended in the one vice of sloth, and if you tell me that a man is a sluggard I have his whole character before me in the blackest of letters. His fallow fields are well adapted for evil seed, and no doubt Satan will raise a fine crop of weeds in every corner of his life. What this world would have been if we had all been gentlemen with nothing to do, I cannot tell. The millions that have to work are largely kept out of mischief by their toil, and although crimes are abundant enough in our great city as it is, what would they have been if there had not been daily tasks to keep men from excessive indulgence in drink and other forms of evil? Without labor, the alehouses would have been crammed every one of the twenty-four hours; folly would have held unbroken carnival, and licentiousness would have burst all bounds. Amongst the sanitary and salutary regulations of the moral universe there is none much better than this--that men must work. He who does not work is not a righteous man for he is out of accord with that which makes for righteousness. In some form or other, with either brain or hand, either by working or enduring, we share the common labors of the race appointed them of heaven; and if we are not doing so, we are not righteous. I call to your remembrance the remarkable words of the Savior, "Thou wicked and slothful servant." Those two adjectives are nearly related--"wicked and slothful." Might not our Lord have said "slothful" alone? He might, but he knew how much of wickedness goes with sloth and is inherent in it, and therefore he branded it with the condemning word.

Our second observation is this: if we avoid sloth we have not done enough, we must also be righteous. If it had been sufficient to shake off idleness and become industrious the text would have run thus: "The way of the slothful is as an hedge of thorns: but the way of the diligent is made plain." Ah, dear friends! a man may be very industrious, and energetic, and earnest, but if it is in a wrong cause he might have been less mischievous had he been slothful. To be exhibiting industry by doing a great deal of mischief is not
commendable. To be actively disseminating your opinions if those opinions are false is to be doing grievous harm. To rise up early, and to sit up late, and to eat the bread of carefulness merely for selfish ends is not to secure a blessing. There is a diligence which is produced by greed or ambition; and this is no better than the selfishness which is the cause of it. Many wear themselves to skin and bone to gather that which is not bread, to hoard up that which can never satisfy them. We are to become the servants of righteousness when we escape from the servitude of sloth. "Not slothful in business" is very well; but to complete the change we must be gracious in our diligence, being "fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." We must do that which is right, and kind, and holy; and so we must live to the honor and glory of him to whom we owe all things.