Spurgeon: Sermons on Proverbs (48 page)
Read Spurgeon: Sermons on Proverbs Online
Authors: Charles Spurgeon
Yet do I not wish to speak of that kind of wounded spirit alone for that is rather the business of the physician than of the divine. Still, it well illustrates this latter part of our text, "a wounded spirit, who can bear?" But this is the kind of wounded spirit I mean. When a soul is under a deep and terrible sense of sin --when conviction flashes into the mind with lightning swiftness and force, and the man says, "I am guilty;" when the notion of what guilt is first comes clearly home to him and he sees that God must be as certainly just as he is good, then he discovers that he has angered infinite love, that he has provoked almighty grace, and that he has made his best Friend to be, necessarily, his most terrible foe. A man in such a condition as that will have a wounded spirit such as none can bear. Then you may pipe to him, but he will not dance; you may try to charm him with your amusements, or to please him with your oratory, but you cannot give him peace or rest. "A wounded spirit, who can bear?" You know that there was one of old who said, "My soul chooseth strangling and death rather than my life," and there was another, Judas, who actually did strangle himself under an awful sense of his guilt in betraying his Lord. Oh! I do trust that no one of you will act as he did, for that were to damn yourself irretrievably; but I do not wonder that you cry out, "Oh, that I could hide myself in the dust to escape from the terrors of a sense of divine wrath!" "A wounded spirit, who can bear?"
Sometimes the spirit is wounded by the fierce temptations of Satan. I hope that you do not all understand what this means; but there are some who do. Satan tempts them to doubt, tempts them to sin, tempts them to blasphemy. Some dear friends whom I know, who are among the purestminded of mortals, and whose lives are models of everything that is devout and right, are worried by the great adversary from morning to night, scarcely ever waking in the night without some vile suggestion of Satan or some horrible howling in their ears, "You are lost; you are lost; you are shut out from mercy for ever." They are tempted even to curse God and die; and that temptation brings a wounded spirit, such as they scarcely know how to bear. Who can bear it? God save you from it if you have fallen under its terrible power!
A wounded spirit may also come through desertion by God. The believer has not walked carefully, he has fallen into sin, and God has hidden his face from him. Ah, my friends, whenever you trifle with sin, I wish you could feel as some of God's true people have done when they have been restored after a great fall! A burnt child dreads the fire, and so does a true child of God who has ever played with sin; he has been brought back to his Lord, but he has gone the rest of his life with an aching heart and limping limbs, and many a time in wintry weather he has felt that his broken bones start and cry out against him with the memory of his past sins. "Deliver me," says David, "from the sins of my youth;" and so may some of God's best servants say in their old age; and some who once were very bright stars but who have been for a while eclipsed, will never be able to escape from a certain sense of darkness which is still upon them. "I shall go softly all my years in the bitterness of my soul," may he say who has once grievously sinned against God after light and knowledge. Therefore beloved, be very careful that you do not backslide, for if you do you will have a wounded spirit which you will not know how to bear.
I believe however that some of God's children have a wounded spirit entirely through mistake. I am always afraid of those who got certain wild notions into their heads, ideas that are not true I mean; they are very happy while they hold those high notions, and they look down with contempt upon others of God's people who do not go kite-flying or balloon-sailing as they do. I think to myself sometimes--how will they come down when their precious balloon bursts? I have often wished them well down on the level again. I have seen them believe this, and believe that, which they were not warranted by the Scriptures to believe, and they have affected exalted ideas of their own attainments. Their position was something wonderful; they were far up in the sky looking down upon all the saints below! Yes, dear friends, that is all very pretty and very fine, undoubtedly; but when you come down again then you will begin to condemn yourself for things that you need not condemn, and you will be distressed and miserable in your spirit because of a disappointment which you need never have had if you had walked humbly with your God. For my own part, I can truly say that none of the novelties of this present evil age have any sort of charm for me; I am content still to abide in the old way, myself ever a poor, needy, helpless sinner, finding everything I need in Christ. If you ever hear me beginning to talk about what a fine fellow I am and how perfect I am getting, you just say, "He's off his head." Please put me in an asylum directly, for I must have lost my reason before I could have believed this modern nonsense. I feel sure that I, for one, shall not suffer any disappointment in this direction, for I shall keep just where Jack the huckster kept, and say with him,-
Yet I am very fearful for others, for whom there awaits a terrible time of bondage when they once come back to the place where it would have been better for them to have stopped. If I were to set up to be a prince of the realm, and begin to spend at the rate of fifty thousand pounds a year, I am afraid that in a very few days I should have the sheriff's officer down upon me, and I should not be able to pay a penny in the pound of my debts. I think I would much rather go on in my own quiet way, and keep within my own means than do any thing of that kind. There are nowadays many spiritual spendthrifts who are pretending to spend money that does not exist, and they will very soon find a sense of their poverty forced upon them, and their want will come like an armed man, demanding their surrender.
I answer first, if you are happy in the Lord and full of joy and confidence, avoid a wounded spirit by never offending your conscience. Labor with all your might to be true to the light that God has given you, to be true to your understanding of God's Word, and to follow the Lord with all your heart. When Mr. Bunyan describes Christian as meeting with Apollyon in the Valley of Humiliation, and fighting that terrible battle which he so graphically describes, he told us that the pilgrim remembered then some of the slips that he had made when he was going down into the valley. While he was fighting with Apollyon he was remembering in his own heart the slips that he had previously made. Nothing will come to you in a time of sorrow and pain and brokenness of spirit so sharply as a sense of sins of omission or sins of commission. When the light of God's presence is gone from you, you will begin sadly to say, "Why did I do this? Why did I not do that?" Therefore dear friends, endeavor as much as lieth in you so to live in the time of your joy that, if there ever should come times of depression, you may not have to remember neglected duties or wilful wickedness.
Again, if you would avoid a wounded spirit get a clear view of the gospel. There are numbers of Christian people who have seen the gospel just as that half-opened eye of the blind man saw "men as trees walking." They do not yet know the difference between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace. They do not know how a Christian stands in Christ. Get them to spell that glorious word grace if they can; ask them to say it like this,-- "free grace." They will probably say to you, "Oh! free grace,--that is tautology." Never mind; give it to them, tautology or not. Spell it in your own bout, --free, rich, sovereign grace; and know that you, a guilty, lost sinner, are saved as a sinner, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, that in due time he died for the ungodly, and that your standing is not in yourself or in your own attainments, but wholly and entirely in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. It will often prevent your getting a wounded spirit if you understand the differences between things that do really differ, and do not mix them up as so many do. Again, you will avoid a wounded spirit by living very near to God. The sheep that gets bitten by the wolf is the one that does not keep near the shepherd. Ah! and I have known sheep to get bitten by the dog, and the dog did not mean them any hurt though he did bite them. It has often happened that when I have been preaching there has been somebody dreadfully hurt. Yes, even the Good Shepherd's dog bites sometimes; but if you had kept near the Shepherd his dog would not have bitten you, for neither the dog nor the wolf will bite those that are near him. Let your cry be-
"Oh, for a closer walk with God!"
Then will come "a calm and heavenly frame"; but if you get away from holy living and close communion with God, you may expect to get a wounded spirit.
IV. But lastly, suppose our spirit is wounded, how is it to be healed? Do you need that I should tell you that there is only One who can heal a wounded spirit? "By his stripes we are healed." If you would be healed of the bleeding wounds of your heart, flee away to Christ. You did so once; do it again. Come to Christ now, though you may have come to him a hundred times before. Come now just as you are, without one plea, but that his blood was shed for you. Come to him. There is no peace for a soul that does not do this, and you must have peace if you will but come simply as you are, and trust yourself with Christ.
If however your wounded Spirit should not get peace at once, try to remove any mistakes which may be causing you unnecessary sorrow. Study your Bible more. Listen to plain preaching of the gospel. Let this be to you the mark of true gospel preaching--where Christ is everything and the creature is nothing; where it is salvation all of grace through the work of the Holy Spirit, applying to the soul the precious blood of Jesus. Try to get a clear view of the gospel and many a doubt and fear will fly away when knowledge takes the place of ignorance.
Endeavour also to get a clear view of your own troubles. We are never frightened so much by what we know as by what we do not know. The boy thinks as he sees something white, "That is a ghost," and that is why he is frightened. He does not know what a ghost is; he supposes that it is something mysterious, and he is superstitious, so he is frightened by the object before him. If he would go right up to it he would see that it is a cow and he would not be frightened any more. Half the fears in the world have no real ground, and if we could but induce troubled persons dispassionately to look at their fears, their fears would vanish. Write it down in black and white if you can, and let some friend read it. Perhaps if you read it yourself you will laugh at it. I believe that oftentimes with regard to the most grievous afflictions that we have in our mind, if they fretted somebody else, we should say, "I cannot think how that person can be so stupid." We almost know that we are ourselves stupid, but we do not like to confess it. I would therefore urge the wounded spirit to look at its wound; it is of no use to cover it over and to say, "Oh, it is an awful wound!" Perhaps if you would just have it thoroughly examined, the surgeon would say to you, "Oh, it is only a flesh wound; it will soon be all right again!" And so your drooping spirits would revive and your wounded self would begin to heal.
One thing however I would say to one who has a really wounded heart. Remember Christ's sympathy with you. O thou who art tossed with tempest and not comforted, thy Lord's vessel is in the storm with thee! Yea, he is in the vessel with thee. There is not a pang that rends the
believer's heart but he has felt it first. He drinks out of the cup with you. Is it very bitter? He has had a cup full of it for every drop that you taste. This ought to comfort you. I know of no better remedy for the heart's trouble in a Christian than to feel, "My Master himself takes no better portion than that which he gives to me."
Also let me recommend as a choice remedy for a wounded spirit; an enlarged view of the love of God. I wish that some of you who have a wounded spirit would give God credit for being as kind as you are yourself. You would not suffer your child to endure a needless pain if you could remove it; neither does God afflict willingly, or grieve the children of men. He would not allow you to be cast down, but would cheer and comfort you if it was good for you. His delight is that you should be happy and joyful. Do not think that you may not take the comfort which he has set before you in his Word; he has put it there on purpose for you. Dare to take it and think well of God, and it shall be well with your soul. If this should not cure the evil, remember the great brevity of an your afflictions, after all. What if you should be a child of God who has even to go to bed in the dark? You will wake up in the eternal daylight. What if for the time being you are in heaviness? There is a needs-be that you should be in heaviness through manifold temptations, and you will come out of it. You are not the first child of God who has been depressed or troubled. Ay, among the noblest men and women who ever lived there has been much of this kind of thing. I noticed in the life of Sir Isaac Newton--probably the greatest mind that God ever made apart from his own dear Son --the great Sir Isaac Newton, the master and teacher of the truest philosophy, during the middle part of his life was in great distress and deep depression. Robert Boyle again, whose name is well known to those who read works of depth of thought, at one time said that he counted life to be a very heavy burden to him. And there was that sweet charming spirit of the poet Cowper. You all know that throughout his life he was like a flower that blooms in the shade; yet he exhaled the sweetest perfume of holy piety and poetry. Do not therefore think that you are quite alone in your sorrow. Bow your head and bear it if it cannot be removed; for but a little while and every cloud shall be swept away, and you in the cloudless sunlight shall behold your God. Meanwhile, his strength is sufficient for you. He will not suffer you
to be tempted above what you are able to bear; and if you cannot bear your infirmity because of your wounded spirit, he will bear for you
both yourself and your infirmity. "O rest in the Lord, and wait
patiently for him." "Let not your heart be troubled, ye believe in God, believe also in your Christ." Go away you Hannah of a sorrowful spirit, and be no more sad. The Lord grant his comforts to you for his Son
Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.
