Spurgeon: Sermons on Proverbs (52 page)

"But," says Mr. Sluggard, "if that is not a good excuse, I will give another. It is all very well for you, Mr. Minister, to talk about being religious, but you don't know where I live; you don't know my business and the sort of shopmates I am engaged with. You know very well it is a hard matter for me to hold my own as it is, with merely going to a place of worship; but if I really were to throw all my heart into it, I should have them all down upon me. I tell you, sir, my business is such that I could not carry it on, and yet be a Christian." Then, Mr. Sluggard; if it is a business that you cannot carry on without going to hell with it--give it up sir. "Ah, but then sir, we must live!" "Yes sir, but then we must die. Will you please to recollect that also, for that seems to me to be a great deal more of a necessity? Sometimes, when people say to me, "Why, you know we must live," I do not see any necessity for that. Some of them would be almost as well dead as alive. "But we must live." I am not sure of that; I am sure of another thing, you must die. Oh, that you would think rather of dying than of living! Besides, it is all nonsense about your business being one that you cannot carry on and be a Christian. I tell you sir, there is no business that is a legitimate one which a man cannot carry on and adorn his Master in it; or if there be such a business, come out of it as you would out of the burning city of Sodom. "But then I am in such an ungodly household, sir; I am so laughed at." Yes, sir; but if somebody were to leave you a thousand pounds on condition that you wore a red ribbon round your arm--you know you would be laughed at if you did, or suppose the condition was that you were to wear a fool's-cap for a week and you would have a thousand pounds a-year for life afterwards, would you not wear it? Ah! I should not like to trust you. I believe you would put it on; and when people laughed you would say, "You may laugh but I am well rewarded for it;" yet here your soul is at stake, and a little laughter you say drives you back. I do not believe you, sir. I do not think you are such a fool as that, to be laughed into hell; for you cannot be laughed out again by all their laughter. I believe your second excuse is as bad as your first one; I shiver it into a thousand pieces. The fact is sir, you don't like religion; that is the truth. You don't want to give up your sins. You are willing to continue to be what you are --a sinner dead in trespasses and sins. That is the plain, simple English of it, and all the excuses you can make will not alter it.

"Nay," says one, "but it is such a hard thing to be a Christian. Very often, when I hear the preacher saying what manner of persons we ought to be I think, Ah! I had better not set out for I shall never go all the way. When I hear of the trials and temptations and troubles of the child of God, I think I will not go." There you are again, Mr.
Sluggard, you will not plough by reason of the cold. But do you not recollect what has been so often impressed upon your mind--though we have many troubles and many trials, yet grace is all-sufficient for us? Do you not know that though the way is long, yet our shoes are iron and brass; and though the work is hard, yet Omnipotence has promised to give us strength all-sufficient? You only look at one side of the subject, and not at the other. Why not think for a moment on that grace of God which guarantees to assist and to carry through all in whom it begins the good work? Sir, your excuse is an idle one. I tell you again that the naked truth is this, that you love your sins, that you love them better than heaven, better than eternal life, that you are a lazy fellow, that you do not like prayer, nor faith, nor repentance, and I warn you that your fate will be that of this sluggard who begged in harvest and had nothing.

Someone else says, "I have no time, I have not indeed." Time for what, sir? What do you mean? "Why, I have no time to pray an hour in the morning!" Who said you had? "But I have no time to be attending to religion all the day long." Who asked you to do so, sir? I suppose you find time for pleasure; perhaps you find time for what you call recreation, and the like. There are many precious portions of time that you sweep away and never use. Where there's a will there's a way, and if the Holy Spirit has made you love religion and the things of God, you will find time enough. That is a worse excuse than any other, for God has given you the time; and if you have not got it, you have lost it. Look for it, for you will be accountable for it at the last great day. You have been hiding your talent in a napkin, and now you say you cannot find it. You had it, sir; where it is is your business, not mine. Look it up; and God help you to shake off your sloth and may you in earnest be constrained by the Holy Spirit to be a Christian, and to espouse the life of the pilgrim, and run with diligence the race that is set before you!

I have thus tried to describe the sluggard as the man who would not plough by reason of the cold--the man who would like to be a Christian, only he does not like the cross; who would like to get to heaven, only he does not like the road there. He would be saved, but oh! he cannot give up his sin, he cannot live in holiness. He would like to be crowned conqueror but he does not like to fight the battle. He would like to reap a harvest, but he neither cares to plough nor to sow. Mr. Sluggard, I have three little sayings to repeat to you; will you try to treasure them up? No pains, no gains; no sweat, no sweet; no mill, no meal. Will you just recollect those three things? I will tell you again lest you should forget them. No pains, no gains; no sweat, no sweet; no mill, no meal. So just get up sir, and may God grant that you may get up to some purpose! "Awake" thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead and Christ shall give thee light." "Let us not sleep as do others; but let us watch and be sober."
But Mr. Sluggard, this life is the time of ploughing and sowing. It is winter-time with us now; but wait awhile and the spring-time shall come, and after that the harvest. There are some of us who are longing for the time when we shall reap the golden harvest, the harvest given to us by grace, but yet a harvest for which we have sown the seed; for Hosea beautifully puts it "Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy." We sow in righteousness but the harvest is not given us as the effect of righteousness, it is given us by mercy. Reap in mercy! What a joyous day that will be when God's true sowers shall reap their harvests! The angels shall be with us; they shall carry harvest home with us; and men and angels, hand in hand, shall enter the gates of paradise bringing their sheaves with them.

Where's our friend the sluggard? Oh, there he is! Is he cold now? No; but how altered he looks! He looked to me quite a smart gentleman when he was sitting by the fire last winter-time, rubbing his hands and saying that he would not plough. What does he look like now? What is his disembodied spirit like? Alas! poor wretch, he is begging. The saints are shouting, but he is moaning. They are rejoicing, but he is sorrowing. They are taken into heaven and housed in the Lord's garner; but he is a houseless wanderer, begging. Look at him; he has just gone up to the great golden gate and he has lifted that knocker of pearl--hark at the noise--and he cries "Lord, Lord, I have eaten and I have drunk in thy presence"--just like you, Mr. Sluggard; you are all for eating and drinking-- "and thou hast taught in our streets;"--very likely, sir; you are just the man to be taught; but you never did anything that you were taught to do. Do you hear the terrible words of the loving Jesus, "I never knew you; depart from me you worker of iniquity"? The golden gate does not open to him. He is still begging but the answer comes, "Your time of sowing you neglected, and now your time of reaping must be a time of beggary for ever." Now he goes up to yonder angel, and he cries, "Bright spirit, introduce me to the courts of heaven. It is true, I wasted my time on earth; but oh, how bitterly do I repent it now! Oh, if I could but have back my wasted hours, what would I not do? If I could but hear the gospel preached again, I would hear it with both my ears, and I am sure I would receive it and be obedient to it." But the angel saith, "I have no power to let you in. Besides, if I could I would not. You had your day, and it is gone, and now you have your night. You had your lamp but you did not trim it. You took no care to have oil in your vessel for your lamp; and now your lamp is gone out, and the Bridegroom's door is shut, and you cannot enter." Now I see him for he is very sad indeed--begging of a saint who has just come up, and saying to him, "Give me of your oil, for my lamp is gone out." But the other replies "Not so, for there is not enough for me and for you. God has given me grace for myself; but I have none to spare for anybody else."
I remember a mother's dream--a mother who once after having exhorted her children, and talked, and prayed, and wrestled with them, retired to rest and dreamt at the day of judgment she and her children arose from the family tomb. The trumpet was rending the air with its terrific blast, and there was she--"saved," but her children still unregenerate. She dreamt that they clasped her round the waist, clung to her garments, and cried, "Mother, save us! take us into heaven with you." But she dreamt that a spirit came--some bright angel--dashed them from her, and wafted her aloft to heaven while they were left. And she remembered too in that dream that she had then no care for them, no thought for them; her spirit was so swallowed up with the one thought that God was dealing justly with them--that they had had their day for sowing, and that they had not sowed, and now must not expect a harvest. The justice of God so filled her breast that she could not even weep for them when she was taken from them.

Ah sluggard! you will be begging in another world, man; and though you will not think of your soul's concerns now, you will think of them then. There is a place where there is a dreadful prayer meeting every day, and every hour in the day; a prayer-meeting where all the attendants pray--not merely one, but all; and they pray too, with sighs and groans and tears; and yet they are never heard. That prayer-meeting is in hell. There is a begging meeting there, indeed. Oh that there were on earth half the prayer there will be there! Oh that the tears shed in eternity had but been shed in time! Oh that the agony that the lost ones now feel had but been felt beforehand! Oh that they had repented ere their life was ended! Oh that their hearts had been made tender before the terrible fire of judgment had melted them!

But notice that though the sluggard begs in harvest, he gets nothing. Now, in harvest time, when everything is plentiful, every man is generous. If a man sees a beggar in the streets in harvest time, he will refuse him nothing. He may go and glean in the field for there is enough and to spare for all. It is a season of abundance; no man grudges his poor fellow-man then. But here is the terrible point, in that last harvest when the slothful man shall beg for bread, no man will give him anything. I see him standing at the gate of heaven, and he looks in. There they are feasting, and he says, "Give me a crumb, a crumb is all I ask, let me have what the dogs have that feed under their masters' table." But it is denied him. There he is, in the flames of he'll, and he cries, "Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue," but it is refused him. He begs in harvest and he has nothing; the beggary becomes all the more terrible because its results are so disappointing. "And to think that others should have so much yet I myself should have nothing; others be blessed but myself cursed."

I do think that one of the stings of hell will be for the sinner to see some of his own relatives and friends in heaven, and himself shut out. Think my dear hearer what you will feel if you should see your wife in paradise, and yourself be eternally excluded. Mother, what if you should see those babes of yours, those precious infants, who took an early flight to heaven--if you should see them above, but between you and them a great gulf fixed so that you can never reach them, but you are shut out and they are glorified! Turn that thought over, I beseech you, and may God grant grace to every one of you that by the love of Christ you may be constrained to escape from hell and fly to heaven; for thus saith the Lord unto you, "Escape, flee for your life, look not behind you, stay not in all the plain, but flee to the mountain of Christ Jesus--lest ye be consumed." Be wise today, O sinner; tomorrow may never come! Now, now, bethink thee; now repent; now cast thy soul on Christ; now give up thy sins; now may the Spirit help thee to begin a new life, and to be in earnest about salvation; for remember, though you laughed when I described the sluggard just now, it will be no laughing matter if you are found in his hot shoes at the day of judgment--if his rags shall be on you and his beggary shall be your everlasting portion. God grant that you may have done with your idle excuses; may you look truly at the matter as in the light of the day of judgment; and God grant you grace so to act that from this time you may be found among the most diligent, the most fervent, and the most anxious of the followers of Christ, ploughing every day with a plough drawn by a superior power, but a plough which shall enter into the world and leave some furrow of usefulness behind it, so that in the day of harvest you may have your portion, and not like the sluggard, beg and have nothing.

II. Well now, having thus addressed the sluggard I have a few minutes to spare in which to address the people of God; and knowing you to be by far the larger portion of those whom I address, I am sorry that I have so little time for you, but can only make just these few remarks.

My dear brothers and sisters, the Lord has by his sovereign grace set our hand to the plough. We once like our poor fellow-sinners hated this plough, and we never should have come to it unless sovereign grace had brought us. Now we have shaken off that old sloth of ours, and we are in earnest about the matter of salvation; but do we not at times feel this old sluggishness creeping on us? When we are asked to do something for the cause of Christ, do we not make excuses? There is a brother over yonder, he ought to join the church but he does not, and his excuse is a very stupid one; I will not tell you what it is. There is another brother--never mind who it is--the man the cap fits, let him wear it till it is worn out, and may it be worn out soon! --he ought to teach in the Sabbath-school, he lives quite conveniently, but he does not like the school. There is another brother, he ought to be doing something or other, but he says that really, his position is just now such that he does not see that he can. The fact is, it is cold my brethren and you don't want to plough. Now recollect, those are always coldest that do not plough, for those that plough get warm. I have always noticed that the people in a church who quarrel are the idle ones. Those that do nothing always grumble. They say, "Ah! there is no love in the church"-- because you haven't any! "Ah" say you, "but they don't speak to one another,"--you mean you don't speak to them. "No," says one, "but they are not active." You mean you are not active, for that which you think they are, depend upon it, you are yourselves; for we mostly see ourselves in other people, and the idea we get of others is close upon the heels of the idea we ought to have of ourselves, except when it is a good notion, and then the less we indulge the thought as being a picture of ourselves, the better.