Spurgeon: Sermons on Proverbs (57 page)
Read Spurgeon: Sermons on Proverbs Online
Authors: Charles Spurgeon
Furthermore, remember that your Lord may come at any hour. Before the word can travel from my lip to your ear Jesus may be here. While you are in business, or on your bed, or in the field, the flaming heavens may proclaim his advent. Stand therefore with your loins girt and your lamps trimmed, ready to go in to the supper whenever the Bridegroom comes. Or, you may die. As a church we have had a double warning during the last few days in the departure of our two beloved elders, Messrs. Hellier and Croker. They have been carried home like shocks of corn, fully ripe. They have departed in peace, and have joyfully entered into rest. We also are on the margin of the dividing stream: our feet are dipped in the waters which wash the river's brim. We too shall soon ford the black torrent. In a moment, suddenly, we may be called away: let every action be such that we would not object to have it quoted as our last action. Let every day be so spent that it might fitly be the close of life on earth. Let our near and approaching end help to keep us "in the fear of the Lord all the day long."
If we keep in that state, observe the admirable results! To abide in the fear of the Lord is to dwell safely. To forsake the Lord would be to court danger. In the fear of the Lord there is strong confidence, but apart from it there is no security. How honorable is such a state! Men ridicule the religion which is not uniform. I heard of a brother who claimed to have long been a teetotaler; but some doubted. When he was asked how long he had been an abstainer, he replied, "Off and on for twenty years." You should have seen the significant smile upon all faces. An abstainer off and on! His example did not stand for much. Certain professors are Christians "off and on", and nobody respects them. Such seed as this will not grow: there is no vitality in it. Constancy is the proof of sincerity. "Be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long": this is to be happy. God has spoiled the believer for being easy in sin. If you are a Christian you will never find happiness in departing from God. I say again, God has spoiled you for such pleasure. Your joy lies in a closer walk with God: your heaven on earth is in communion with the Lord.
If you abide in the fear of the Lord, how useful you will be! Your "off and on" people are worth nothing: nobody is influenced by them. What little good they do, they undo. The abiding man is also the growing man. He that is "in the fear of the Lord all the day long" gets to have more of that fear; and it has more practical power over his life and heart. What a poor life they lead who are alternately zealous and lukewarm! Like Penelope, they weave by day but unravel by night. They blow hot and cold, and so melt and freeze by turns. They build and then break down, and so are never at rest. Children of God, let your conduct be consistent. Let not your lives be like a draught-board, with as many blacks as whites. Do not be speckled birds, like magpies, more famed for chatter than anything else. Oh, that God would make us white doves! I pray you be not bold one day and cowardly another; be not one day sound in the faith, and the next day on the down-grade. Be not under excitement generous, and in cool blood mean as a miser. Oh that we might become like our Father in heaven in holiness, and then become like him in immutability, so as to be for ever holy!
From all this let us infer our great need. I think I hear somebody say, "You are cutting out a nice bit of work for us." Am I? Believe me, I am looking to a stronger hand than yours. To be in the fear of the Lord for a single day is not to be accomplished by unrenewed nature; it is a work of grace. See then what great grace you will need for all the days of your life. Go for it, and get it. See how little you can do without the Spirit of God: without his indwelling you will soon cast off all fear of the Lord. Plead the covenant promise, "I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me." Depend upon God for everything; and as you know that salvation is of faith that it might be by grace, exercise much faith towards God. Believe that he can make you to be in his fear all the day long. "According to your faith, be it unto you." Believe holiness to be possible; seek after it and possess it. Faith, as it is the channel of grace, must always be associated with truth. True faith lives on truth. If you give up the doctrines of the gospel you will not be in the fear of God at all; and if you begin to doubt them, you will not be "in the fear of the Lord all the day long." Get solid truth for the foundation of your faith and let your firm faith bring you daily grace, that you may manifestly be always in the fear of the Lord.
II. Now, I have rightly taken up the most of my time with the principal topic, and we will only have a word or two upon the next theme. Let us consider the probable interruption. It has happened to godly men in all ages to see the wicked prosper, and they have been staggered by the sight. You see a man who has no conscience making money in your trade, while you make none. Sometimes you think that your conscientiousness hinders you; and I hope it is nothing else. You see another person scheming and cheating: to him honesty is mere policy, and Sabbath-labor is no difficulty, for the Word of God is nothing to him. You cannot do as he does, and therefore you do not seem to get on as he does. Be it so: but let not his prosperity grieve you. There is something better to live for than mere money-making. If your life pleases God, let it please you. Never envy the ungodly. Suppose God allows them to succeed--what then? You should no more envy them than you envy fat bullocks the ribbons which adorn them at the show: they are ready for the slaughter. Do you wish yourself in their place? The fate of the prosperous sinner is one to be dreaded: he is set on high to be cast down.
Do not even in your wish deprive the ungodly of their transient happiness. Their present prosperity is the only heaven they will ever know. Let them have as much of it as they can. I have heard of a wife who treated her unkind and ungodly husband with great gentleness for this very reason. She said, "I have prayed for him, and entreated him to think about his soul; but at last I have come to fear that he will die in his sins, and therefore I have made up my mind that I will make him as happy as I can in this life. I tremble to think of what his misery must be in the world to come, and therefore I will make him happy now." O, men in your senses, surely you will not grudge poor swine their husks and swill! Nay, fill the trough and let the creature feed, for it has neither part nor lot in a higher life. Believer, take thou thy bitter cup and drink it without complaining; for an hour with thy God will be a hundredfold recompense for a life of trial.
One is the more tried because these men are very apt to boast. They crow over the suffering believer, saying, "What comes of your religion? You are worse off than I am. See how splendidly I get on without God!" Care nothing for their boasting; it will end so soon. Their tongue walketh through the earth, but it only utters vanity.
It is galling to see the enemies of God triumphant. Their policy for a time beats the plain protest of the lover of truth. Their deceit baffles the plain man. The lovers of error outnumber the men of God. Such men tread on creeds and trust-deeds and every other legal protection of honest people. What care they? They despise the old-fashioned folk whom they oppress. Remember Haman in the Book of Esther, and note how glorious he was till he was hung up on the gallows.
There is no real cause for envying the wicked; for their present is danger, their future is doom. I see them now on yonder island, sporting, dancing, feasting merrily. I am standing as on a bare rock, and I might well envy them their island of roses and lilies; but as I watch I see that their fairy island is gradually sinking to destruction. The ocean is rising all around; the waves are carrying away the shores: even while they dance, the floods advance. Lo, yonder is one infatuated wretch sinking amidst the devouring flood. The rest continue at their play, but it cannot last much longer. They will soon be gone. Let me stand on my lone rock rather than sink amid their fleeting luxury. Let me abide in safety rather than dance where danger is all around.
Envy helps in no way, but it hinders in many ways. If you envy the wicked you may soon wish to be like them. If you do so wish, you are like them now! He that would be willing to be wicked in order to prosper is wicked already. He who says, "I should like to do as they do that I might grow rich as they do"; why, he is a man that has his price and would sell his soul if he could meet a purchaser. No, not for all the world would we share the lot of unbelievers. We would sit in the gate with Mordecai sooner than feast with the king with Haman. God help us, dear friends, that we may not be disturbed by seeing the prosperity of the wicked.
First then, there is an end of this life. These things are not for ever: on the contrary all that we see is a dissolving view. Surely, every man walketh in a vain show: even as a show it is vain. You talk of spiritual things as though they were shadows; but in very truth these are the only substance. Temporal things are as the mirage of the desert. The things about us are such stuff as dreams are made of; and when we truly awake we shall despise their image. In all wealth and honor there are a worm and a moth. Think of the sinner's end, and you will no longer be troubled when he spreads himself like a green bay tree.
Next, there is an end of the worldling's prosperity. He makes his money. What then? He makes more. What then? He makes more. What then? He dies; and there is a little notice in the newspaper which says that he died worth so much; which being interpreted means that he was taken away from so much which he never possessed, but guarded for his heir. There is an end in death, and after death the judgment; "for God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing." What an end will that be! The sinner may live as carelessly as he pleases, but he must answer for it at the judgment-seat of Christ. Loud may be his laughter, sarcastic and bitter may be his criticisms upon religion; but there is an end; and when the deathsweat beads his brow he will lower his key, and need help from that very gospel which he criticized. "There is an end." Let us not spend our lives for that which hath an end: an immortal soul should seek immortal joys.
Dear friends, to you there is an end in quite another sense. God has an end in your present trouble and exercise. Your difficulties and trials are sent as messenger from God with gracious design. "Be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long"; for every part of the day hath its tendency to work out your spiritual education, your preparation for the heaven to come. In everything that happens to you your heavenly Father has an end. The arrows of calamity are aimed at your sins. Your bitter cups are moans to purify the inward parts of the soul. Fret not, but trust. There is an old proverb that you should never let children and fools see half-finished works: even so, the work of God in providence cannot be judged of by such poor children as we are, for we cannot see to the end of the Lord's design. My brethren, when we see the end from the beginning and behold God's work complete, we shall have a very different view of things from what we have now, while the work is still proceeding.
Lastly, whilst there is an end to the wicked there will be no failure to your expectation. What are you expecting? That God will keep his promise? And so he will. That God will give you peace in the end? And so he will. That he will raise you from the dead and set you in heavenly places with Christ? And so he will. And that you shall be for ever with the Lord, and he will grant you glory and bliss? And so he will. "Your expectation shall not be cut off." Every Christian is a man of great expectations, and none of them will fail. Let him cultivate his hope and enlarge its scope; for the hopes which are built on Jesus and his grace will never disappoint us. In our case, the birds in the bush are better birds than those in the hand; and they are quite as sure. The promise of God is in itself a possession, and our expectation of it is in itself an enjoyment.
I have done, dear friends. May the Holy Spirit speak these things home to your hearts! Christian people ought to be exceedingly glad; for if they have but a small estate, they have it on an endless tenure. The worldling may have a large house but he has it only upon a short lease: he will have nothing soon. Just now there is a great noise made about leaseholds falling in. Every ungodly man may have his life-lease run out tomorrow! But the believer has a freehold. What he has is his without reserve. "Their inheritance shall be for ever." By faith grasp the eternal. Treasure the spiritual. Rejoice in God, and "be in the fear of the Lord all the day long." God grant you this in his great grace, for Christ's sake! Amen.
Portion of Scripture Read Before Sermon--Psalm 37.
A sermon (No. 2152) intended for reading on Lord's Day, July 13th, 1890,
delivered by C. H. Spurgeon at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington, on Lord's Day Evening, June 22nd, 1890.
The words are very direct and personal; and that is what I wish my sermon to be. My soul is more and more set upon immediate conversions. I have no voice with which to play the orator; I have only enough strength to be an earnest pleader with your souls. I want to come to close quarters with you, and to plead with each man and woman here as if there were but one. Specially would I press my entreaties upon the young, that they may immediately begin that blessed walk which will lead them to the right hand of God. Here and now I desire your salvation. I may never preach again, and you may never hear me again. "Now is the accepted time."
Solomon, in this verse, gave forth three precepts. I am not very careful as to what limited meaning he personally attached to his words. I am going to baptize his precepts into the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ. I shall put into them a fullness of gospel meaning and I shall press them home upon the heart, praying the Holy Spirit to lead every unconverted person to whom these words shall come to obey these three precepts at once. My voice is to each one. I think I have a message from God for thee, and for thee. Be not disobedient to the heavenly summons.
