Spurgeon: Sermons on Proverbs (42 page)

He is born for adversity I think in this sense, that you can hardly know him except through adversity. You may know Christ so as to be saved by him by a single act of faith, but for a full discovery of his beauty it needs that you go through the furnace. Those children of God whose grassy paths are always newly mown and freshly smoothed, learn comparatively but little fellowship with Christ and have but slender knowledge of him, but they that do business on great waters, these see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep, and these know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. "It is good for me that I have been afflicted," many can say, not only because of the restoring effect of sorrow, but because their afflictions have acted like windows, to let them gaze into the very heart of Christ, and read his pity and understand his nature, as they never could have done by other means. Furnace light is memorably clear. Jesus is a brother born for adversity because in the glimmer of the world's eventide, when all the lamps are going out, a glory shines around him, transforming midnight into day.

He is a brother born for adversity, in the last place, because in adversity it is that through his people's patience he is glorified. I warrant you the sweetest songs that ever come up from these lowlands to the eternal throne are from sick beds. "They shall sing his high praises in the fires." God's children are too often dumb when they have much of this world's earth in their mouths, but when the Lord is pleased to take away their comforts and possessions, then, like birds in cages they begin to sing with all their hearts. Praise him, ye suffering ones, your praise will be grateful to him. Extol him ye mourners, exchange by faith your sorrows for hopes, and bless his name who deserveth to be praised.

II. Now I shall leave this and only for a moment turn the text round to a practical purpose by referring it to the Christian. I hope that what has been spoken has been only the echo of the experience of the most of you. You have found Jesus Christ to be a true brother and a blessed friend, now let the same be true of you. He that would have friends must show himself friendly. If Christ be such a friend to us, what manner of people ought we to be towards him? So, beloved, let us pray and labor to be friends that love Christ at all times. Alas! some professors seem to love him at no time at all. They give him lip homage, but they refuse to give him the exercise of their talents, or the contribution of their substance. They love him only with words that are but air, but they offer him no sweet cane with money, neither do they fill him with the fat of their sacrifices. Such people are windbag lovers, and do nothing substantial to prove their affection. Let it not be so with us. Let our love to Christ be so true as to constrain us to make sacrifices for him. Let us deny ourselves that we may spread abroad the knowledge of his truth, and never be content unless in very deed and act we are giving proofs of our love.

We ought to love him at all times. Alas! there are some that prosper in business who grow too great to love their Savior. They hold their heads too high to associate with his saints. Aforetime they were with his people, content to worship with them when they were in humble circumstances, but they have prospered in trade, they have laid by a good store of wealth, and now they feel half ashamed to attend the conventicle that was once the very joy of their hearts. They must seek out the world's religion, and they must worship after the world's fashion, for they must not be left behind in society. The people of God are not good enough for them; though they be kings and princes in Christ's esteem, yet are they too poor company for those that have risen so high in the world. Alas, alas! that professed lovers of Jesus should rise too high to walk truthfully and faithfully with Christ: it is no rise at all, but a lamentable fall. Let us cling to him in days of joy as well as nights of grief, and prove to all mankind that there are no enchantments in this world that can win our hearts away from our best beloved.

We should love Jesus Christ at all times, that is to say, in times when the church seems dull and dead. Perhaps some of you are living in a district just now where the ministry is painfully devoid of power. The lamp burns very low in your sanctuary, the members worshipping are few and zeal is altogether dead. Do not desert the church, do not flee away from her in the time of her necessity. Keep to your post, come what may. Be the last man to leave the sinking vessel, if sink she must. Resolve as a friend of Christ to love him at all times, and as a brother born into that church, feel that now, beyond all other times, in the season of adversity, you must adhere to her. It may happen that some here present may tomorrow be found in a workshop or in some other place where their business brings them, where some dear child of God will be laughed at and ridiculed. That same man you would have cheerfully owned on the Sabbath as your brother, you delighted to unite your voice with him in prayer, but now while he stands in the midst of a ribald throng will you own him, or rather, own Christ in him? They are making cruel jokes, they are vexing his gracious spirit; now it is possible that a cowardly fear may make you slink away to the other end of the shop, but oh, if you remember that a friend loveth at all times you will take up this man's quarrel as being Christ's quarrel, and you, as being a part of the body of Christ, will be willing to share whatever contumely may come upon your fellow Christian, and you will say "If you mock at him you may mock also at me, for I also have been with Jesus of Nazareth, and him whom you scoff at I adore." O let us never, by the love that Christ has borne to us, keep back a truth because it may expose us to shame. Let us never be such cowards as to palter with the word of God because we may then live in silken ease and delicacy. These are not times in which one single particle of truth ought to be repressed. Whatever the Spirit of God and the word of God may have taught you my brethren, out with it for Christ's sake, and let it bring what it will to you, bear that with joy. Since your Savior bore far more for you, count it joy to bear anything for him. Be a brother born on purpose for adversity. Do you expect to be carried to heaven on beds of ease? do you reckon to win the everlasting laurels without a conflict? What, sirs, would ye stand beneath the waving banners of victory without having first endured the smoke and the dust of battle? Nay, rather with consecrated courage follow in the steps of your Master. Love him at all times, give up all for him, and then shall you soon be with him in his glory world without end. God grant a blessing for Jesus' sake. Amen.

A sermon (No. 491) delivered on Lord's Day Evening, October 26th, 1862, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington,
by C. H. Spurgeon.

Strong towers were a greater security in a bygone age than they are now. Then, when troops of marauders invaded the land, strong castles were set upon the various hill-tops and the inhabitants gathered up their little wealth and fled thither at once. Castles were looked upon as being very difficult places for attack; and ancient troops would rather fight a hundred battles than endure a single siege. Towns which would be taken by modern artillery in twelve hours held out for twelve years against the most potent forces of the ancient times. He that possessed a castle was lord of all the region round about, and made their inhabitants either his clients who sought his protection or his dependents whom he ruled at will. He who owned a strong tower felt, however potent might be his adversary, his walls and bulwarks would be his sure salvation. Generous rulers provided strongholds for their people; mountain fortresses where the peasantry might be sheltered from marauders. Transfer your thoughts to a thousand years ago, and picture a people who after ploughing and sowing, have gathered in their harvest, but when they are about to make merry with the harvest festival, a startling signal banishes their joy. A trumpet is blown from yonder mountain, the tocsin answers it from the village tower, hordes of ferocious robbers are approaching, their corn will be devoured by strangers; burying their corn and furniture and gathering up the little portable wealth they have, they hasten with all their might to their tower of defense which stands on yonder ridge. The gates are shut; the drawbridge is pulled up; the portcullis is let down; the warders are on the battlements, and the inhabitants within feel that they are safe. The enemy will rifle their deserted farms, and search for hidden treasure, and finding that the inhabitants are quite beyond their reach, they will betake themselves to some other place. Such is the figure which is in the text. "The name of the Lord is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe."

I. Of course we all know that by the name of God is meant the character of the Most High, so that our first lesson is that the character of God furnishes the righteous with an abundant security.

The character of God is the refuge of the Christian, in opposition to other refuges which godless men have chosen. Solomon suggestively puts the following words in the next verse-- "The rich man's wealth is his strong city, and as an high wall in his own conceit." The rich man feels that his wealth may afford him comfort. Should he be attacked in law, his wealth can procure him an advocate; should he be insulted in the streets, the dignity of a full purse will avenge him; should he be sick, he can fee the best physicians; should he need ministers to his pleasures, or helpers of his infirmities, they will be at his call; should famine stalk through the land, it will avoid his door; should war itself break forth he can purchase an escape from the sword, for his wealth is his strong tower. In contra-distinction to this, the righteous man finds in his God all that the wealthy man finds in his substance, and a vast deal more. "The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I trust in him." God is our treasure; he is to us better than the fullest purse, or the most magnificent income; broad acres yield not such peace as a well attested interest in the love and faithfulness of our heavenly Father. Provinces under our sway could not bring to us greater revenues than we possess in him who makes us heirs of all things by Christ Jesus. Other men who trust not in their wealth, nevertheless make their own names a strong tower. To say the truth, a man's good name is no mean defense against the attacks of his fellowmen. To wrap one's self about in the garment of integrity is to defy the chill blast of calumny, and to be mailed against the arrows of slander. If we can appeal to God and say, "Lord, thou knowest that in this thing I am not wicked," then let the mouth of the liar pour forth his slanders, let him scatter his venom where he may, we bear an antidote within before which his poison yields its power. But this is only true in a very limited sense; death soon proves to men that their own good name can afford them no consolation, and under conviction of sin a good repute is no shelter. When conscience is awake, when the judgment is unbiassed, when we come to know something of the law of God and of the justice of his character, we soon discover that
selfrighteousness is no hiding-place for us, a crumbling battlement which will fall on the neck of him that hides behind it--a pasteboard fortification yielding to the first shock of the law--a refuge of lies to be beaten down with the great hailstones of eternal vengeance--such is the righteousness of man. The righteous trusteth not in this; not his own name, but the name of his God, not his own character, but the character of the Most High is his strong tower. Numberless are those castles in the air to which men hasten in the hour of peril: ceremonies lift their towers into the clouds; professions pile their walls high as mountains, and works of the flesh paint their delusions till they seem substantial bulwarks; but all, all shall melt like snow and vanish like a mist. Happy is he who leaves the sand for the rock, the phantom for the substance.

The name of the Lord is a strong tower to the Christian, not only in opposition to other men's refuges, but as a matter of fact and reality. Even when he is not able to perceive it by experience, yet God's character is the refuge of the saint. If we come to the bottom of things, we shall find that the basis of the security of the believer lies in the character of God. I know you will tell me it is the covenant; but what is the covenant worth if God were changeable, unjust, untrue? I know you will tell me that the confidence of the believer is in the blood of Christ; but what were the blood of Christ if God were false; if after Christ had paid the ransom the Lord should deny him the ransomed, if after Christ had stood the substitute, the judge of men should yet visit upon our heads for whom he suffered our own guilt; if Jehovah could be unrighteous; if he could violate his promise and become faithless as we are, then I say that even the blood of Christ would afford us no security. You tell me that there is his promise, but again I remind you that the value of a man's promise must depend on his character. If God were not such that he cannot lie, if he were not so faithful that he cannot repent, if he were not so mighty that he cannot be frustrated when he intends to perform, then his promise were but waste paper; his words like our words would be but wind, and afford no satisfactory shelter for a soul distressed and anxious. But you will tell me he has sworn with an oath. Brethren, I know he has. He has given us two immutable things in which it is impossible for him to lie that we may have strong consolation. But still what is a man's oath worth irrespective of his character? Is it not after all what a man is that makes his asseveration to be eminently mistrusted or profoundly believed? And it is because our God cannot by any means foreswear himself but must be true, that his oath becomes of value to you and to me. Brethren, after all, let us remember that the purpose of God in our salvation is the glorifying of his own character, and this it is that makes our salvation positively sure. If everyone that trusts in Christ be not saved then is God dishonored, the Lord of Hosts hath hung up his escutcheon, and if in the face of the whole earth he accomplisheth not that which he declares he will perform in this book, then is his escutcheon stained. I say it, he hath flung down the gauntlet to sin, and death, and hell, and if he be not the conqueror over all these in the heart of every soul that trusteth in him, then he is no more the God of Victories, nor can we shout his everlasting praise as the Lord mighty in battle. His character then, you see, when we come to the basis of all, is the great granite formation upon which must rest all the pillars of the covenant of grace and the sure mercies thereof. His wisdom, truth, mercy, justice, power, eternity, and immutability, are the seven pillars of the house of sure salvation. If we would have comfort, we can surely find it in the character of God. This is our strong tower, we run into it and we are safe.