Spurgeon: Sermons on Proverbs (73 page)

And then remember what disastrous circumstances have occurred to men in this life after tomorrow had gone, from boasting of tomorrows. Ay, there is many a man that set all his hope upon one single thing; and the tomorrow came which he did not expect-- perhaps a black and dark tomorrow, and it crushed his hopes to ashes; and how sad he felt afterwards! He was in his nest; he said, "Peace, peace, peace;" and sudden destruction came upon his happiness and his joy. He had boasted of his tomorrow by over security, and see him there, what a very wreck of a man he is because he had set his hope on that; now his joy is blasted. Oh! my friends, never boast too much of the tomorrows, because if you do your disappointment will be tremendous when you shall find your joys have failed you and your hopes have passed away. See there that rich man; he has piled heaps on heaps of gold; but now for a desperate venture he is about to have more than he ever possessed before, and he reckons on that tomorrow. Nothingness is his; and what is his disappointment? because he boasted of imagined wealth. See that man! his ambition is to raise his house and perpetuate his name; see that heir of his-- his joy, his life, his fulness of happiness. A
handful of ashes and a coffin are left to the weeping father. Oh! if he had not boasted too much of the certainty of that son's life, he had not wept so bitterly after the tomorrow had swept over him with all its blast and mildew of his expectations. See yonder another; he is famous, he is great; tomorrow comes a slander and his fame is gone and his name disgraced. Oh! had he not set his love on that, he had not cared whether men cried, "crucify," or "hallelujah;" he had disregarded both alike. But believing that fame was a stable thing, whereas its foot is on the sand, he reckoned on tomorrows; and mark how sad he walks the earth because tomorrow has brought him nothing but grief. "Boast not thyself of tomorrow."

And I would have you remember just one fact, and that I think to be a very important one; that very often when men boast of tomorrow and are over confident that they shall live, they not only entail great sorrow upon themselves, but upon others also. I have when preaching frequently begged of my friends to be quite sure to make their wills, and see to their family affairs. Many are the solemn instances which should urge you to do so. One night a minister happened to say in the course of his sermon that he held it to be a Christian duty for every man to have his house set in order, so that if he were taken away, he would know that as far as possible everything would be right. And there was one member of his church there who said to himself, "What my minister has said is true. I should not like to see my babes and my wife left with nothing, as they must be if I were to die." So he went home. That night he made his will and cleared up his accounts. That night he died! It must have been a joyful thing for the widow in the midst of her sadness to find herself amply provided for, and everything in order for her comfort. Good Whitfield said he could not lie down in bed of a night if he did not know that even his gloves were in their place; for he said he should not like to die with anything in his house out of order. And I would have every Christian very careful to be so living one day that if he were never to see another, he might feel that he had done the utmost that he could, not only to provide for himself, but also for those who inherit his name and are dear to him. Perhaps you call this only worldly teaching; very good; you will find it very much like heavenly teaching one of these dark days if you do not practise it. "Boast not thyself of tomorrow."

II. But now I come to dwell upon this in a spiritual manner for a moment or two. "Boast not thyself of tomorrow." Oh! my beloved friends, never boast of tomorrow with regard to your soul's salvation.

They do so, in the first place, who think that it will be easier for them to repent tomorrow than it is to-day. Felix said there would be a more convenient season, and then he would again send for Paul that he might hear him seriously. And many a sinner thinks that just now it is not easy to turn and to repent, but that by-and-bye it will be. Now, is not that a very string of falsehoods? In the first place is it ever easy for a sinner to turn to God? Must not that be done, at any time, by divine power? And again, if that be not easy for him now, how will it be easier in after life? Will not his sins bind fresh fetters to his soul so that it will be even more impossible for him to escape from his iron bondage? If he be dead now, will he not be corrupt before he reaches tomorrow? And when tomorrow comes, to which he looks forward as being easier for a resurrection, will not his soul be yet more corrupt, and therefore, if we may so speak, even further from the possibility of being raised? Oh! sirs, ye say it is easy for you to repent tomorrow; why then not to-day? Ye would find the difficulty of it if you should try it; yea, you would find your own helplessness in that matter. Possibly you dream that on a future day repentance will be more agreeable to your feelings. But how can you suppose that a few hours will make it more pleasant? If it be vinegar to your taste now, it shall be so then; and if ye love your sins now, ye will love them better then; for the force of habit will have confirmed you in your course. Every moment of your lives is driving in another rivet to your eternal state. So far as we can see, it becomes less and less likely (speaking after the manner of men) that the sinner should burst his chains each sin that he commits; for habit has bound him yet faster to his guilt, and his iniquity has got another hold upon him. Let us take care then that we do not boast of tomorrow by a pretence that it will be so much easier to repent tomorrow; whereas it is one of Satan's lies, for it will only be the more difficult.

He boasts of tomorrow, again, who supposes that he shall have plenty of time to repent and to return to God. Oh! there are many who say, "When I come to die, I shall be on my death-bed, and then I shall say, Lord, have mercy upon me a sinner.'" I remember an aged minister telling me a story of a man whom he often warned, but who always said to him, "Sir, when I am dying I shall say Lord, have mercy on me;' and I shall go to heaven as well as anybody else." Returning home from market one night rather "foul" with liquor, he guided his horse with a leap right over the parapet of a bridge into the river; the last words he was heard to utter were a most fearful imprecation; and in the bed of the river he was found dead, killed by the fall. So it may be with you. You think you will have space for repentance, and it may be that sudden doom will devour you: or perhaps even while you are sitting there in the pew your last moment is running out. There is your hour-glass. See! it is running. I marked another grain just then, and then another fell; it fell so noiselessly, yet methought I heard it fall. Yes! there it is! The clock's tick is the fall of that grain of
dust down from your hour-glass. Life is getting shorter every moment with all of you; but with some the sand is almost out; there is not a handful left. A few more grains. See, now they are less, two or three. Oh! in a moment it may be said, "There is not one left." Sinner! never think that thou hast time to spare! thou never hadst; man never had. God says, "Haste thee," when he bids men flee from Sodom. Lot had to haste, and depend upon it, when the Spirit speaks in a man's heart he doth always bid him haste. Under natural convictions men are very prone to tarry; but the Spirit of God, when he speaks in the heart of man, always says, "to-day." I never knew a truly anxious soul yet who was willing to put off till tomorrow. When God the Holy Ghost has dealings with a man they are always immediate dealings. The sinner is impatient to get deliverance; he must have pardon now; he must have present mercy or else he fears that mercy will come too late to him. Let me beseech you then (and may God the Holy Spirit grant that my entreaty may become successful in your case), let me beseech every one of you to take this into consideration--that there is never time to spare, and that your thought that there is time to spare is an insinuation of Satan; for when the Spirit pleads with man he pleads with him with demands of immediate attention. "To-day, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation."
"Boast not thyself of tomorrow," O sinner, as I doubt not thou art doing in another fashion. "Boast not thyself of tomorrow," in the shape of resolves to do better. I think I have given up resolutions now; I have enough of the debris and the rubbish of my resolutions to build a cathedral with, if they could but be turned into stone. Oh! the broken resolutions, the broken vows all of us have had! Oh! we have raised castles of resolutions, structures of enormous size that outvied Babylon itself in all its majesty. Says one, "I know I shall be better tomorrow; I shall renounce this vice and the other; I shall forsake this lust; I shall give up that darling sin; true, I shall not do so now--a little more sleep and a little more slumber; but I know I shall do it tomorrow." Fool! thou knowest not that thou shalt see tomorrow. Oh! greater fool! thou oughtest to know that what thou art not willing to do to-day thou wilt not be willing to do tomorrow. I believe there are many souls that have been lost by good intentions which were never carried out. Resolutions strangled at their birth brought on men the guilt of spiritual infanticide; and they have been lost with
resolutions sticking in their mouths. Many a man has gone down to hell with good resolution on his lip, with a pious resolve on his tongue. Oh! if he had lived another day, he said he would have been so much better; if he had lived another week, oh, then he thought he would begin to pray. Poor soul! if he had been spared another week he would only have sunk the deeper into sin! But he did not think so, and he went to hell with a choice morsel rolling under his tongue--that he should do better directly, and that he meant to amend by-and-bye. There are many of you present I dare say, who are making good resolutions. You are apprentices: well, you are not going to carry them out till you get to be journeymen. You have been breaking the Sabbath: but you intend to leave it off when you are in another situation. You have been accustomed to swear: you say, "I shall not swear any more when I get out of this company, they try my temper so." You have committed this or that petty theft: tomorrow you will renounce it because tomorrow you will have enough, and you can afford to do it. But of all the lying things--and there are many things that are deceptive--resolutions for tomorrow are the worst of all. I would not trust one of them; there is nothing stable in them; you might sooner sail to America across the Atlantic on a sere leaf than float to heaven on a resolution.

It is the frailest thing in the world, tossed about by every
circumstance, and wrecked with all its precious freight--wrecked to the dismay of the man who ventured his soul in it--wrecked, and wrecked for aye. Take care my dear hearers, that none of you are reckoning on tomorrows. I remember the strong but solemn words of Jonathan Edwards, where he says, "Sinner, remember, thou art at this moment standing over the mouth of hell upon a single plank, and that plank is rotten; thou art hanging over the jaws of perdition by a solitary rope, and lo! the strands of that rope are creaking-- breaking now, and yet thou talkest of tomorrows!" If thou wert sick, man, wouldst thou send for thy physician tomorrow? If thine house were on fire, wouldst thou call "fire" tomorrow? If thou wert robbed in the street on thy road home, wouldst thou cry "stop thief" tomorrow? No, surely; but thou art wiser than that in natural concerns. But man is foolish, oh! too foolish in the things that concern his soul; unless divine and infinite love shall teach him to number his days that he may apply his heart unto true wisdom, he will still go on boasting of tomorrows, until his soul has been destroyed by them.

Just one hint to the child of God. Ah! my beloved brother or sister, do not, I beseech thee, boast of tomorrow thyself. David did it once: he said, "My mountain standeth firm, I shall never be moved." Do not boast of your tomorrows. You have feathered your nest pretty well; ay, but you may have a thorn in it before the sun has gone down, and you will be glad enough to fly aloft. You are very happy and joyful, but do not say you will always have as much faith as you have now--do not be sure you will always be as blessed. The next cloud that sweeps the skies may drive many of your joys away. Do not say you have been kept hitherto, and you are quite sure you will be preserved from sin tomorrow. Take care of tomorrows. Many Christians go tumbling on without a bit of thought; and then, on a sudden, they tumble down and make a mighty mess of their profession. If they would only look sharp after the
tomorrows--if they would only watch their paths instead of star-gazing and boasting about them, their feet would be a great deal surer. True, God's child need not think of tomorrow as regards his soul's eternal security, for that is in the hand of Christ and safe for ever; but as far as his profession, and comfort, and happiness are concerned, it will well become him to take care of his feet every day. Do not get boasting; if you get boasting of tomorrow you know the Lord's rule is always to send a canker where we put our pride. And so if you boast of tomorrow you will have a moth in it before long. As sure as ever we glory in our wealth it becomes cankered, or it takes to itself wings and flies away; and as certainly as we boast of tomorrow, the worm will gnaw its root, as it did Jonah's gourd, and the tomorrow under which we rested shall, with dropping leaves, only stand a monument to our disappointment. Let us take care Christian brethren, that we do not waste the present time with hopes of tomorrow--that we do not get proud and so off our guard by boasting of what we most assuredly shall be then, as we imagine.

III. And now in the last place, if tomorrows are not to be boasted of, are they good for nothing? No, blessed be God! There are great many things we may do with tomorrows. We may not boast of them, but I will tell you what we may do with them if we are the children of God. We may always look forward to them with patience and confidence, that they will work together for our good. We may say of the tomorrows, "I do not boast of them, but I am not frightened at them; I would not glory in them, but I will not tremble about them."