Spurgeon: Sermons on Proverbs (78 page)
Read Spurgeon: Sermons on Proverbs Online
Authors: Charles Spurgeon
The same rule is to be observed in matters of church government and discipline, in the ordinances of the Lord's house, in the truth to be preached, and in the way we go about our Master's business. It is not for us to make our own laws or to invent our own methods; but just to wait upon our Master and learn his will concerning everything. If we do not do that we shall get into a world of trouble; but if we wait upon him for our orders and then obey the orders we receive from our Master, we shall be honored.
Next we must wait upon him for strength to obey his orders, for if we do not we shall either fail in our attempts, or else we shall fail altogether to make the attempt. We must also wait upon our Master, seeking his smile. I am afraid we do a great deal to get the smiles of our brethren, and if they think we have done well we congratulate ourselves. But oh! to preach for the Master, to pray for the Master, to teach that class for the Master--not for your pastor; not for the elders or deacons, not for your fellow-members, that they may say, "What a zeal for the Lord this person has!" Let it all be done for the Master. "He that waiteth on his master shall be honored." Do you not think that sometimes you and I wait upon ourselves, and that while we are very busy and fancying we are working for the Lord, we may be doing it entirely for self? Because we find some sort of pleasure in it we keep on doing it just for that pleasure, or because we feel that some kind of credit must come to ourselves as the result of it. If we are serving self, not our Master, we shall have a reward but it will be a poor commonplace reward, like that of the Pharisees, of whom the Master said, "Verily I say unto you, they have their reward." That is the end of it; they have had their reward, and they cannot expect to be paid twice for what they have done.
We are, dear friends, further to wait upon the Lord by expecting him to fuifil his promises; and his promises will only be fulfilled in his own time. We are not to run before the Lord, nor to seek to hasten the Lord, as though we thought he was slow in accomplishing his purposes. If we ever do cry, "Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord," we shall probably receive for an answer, "Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion." It is we who are asleep, the Lord never is; and we are to wait upon him and plead the promises that he has given us.
This waiting also includes acquiescence in his will; not only doing it, but suffering it, being ready for anything that he may appoint; perhaps lying on a sick bed for months. Why, if we never rose again and had to lie bedridden until we died, we ought to be perfectly willing so to wait on our Master. You remember the story of poor old Betty, who said that the Lord told her to do this and that, and she tried to do it, and at last he said to her, "Betty, go upstairs and lie in your bed and cough." She said, "I am doing it, and I take satisfaction even in coughing if that be according to my Lord's will." If you have no will of your own in such matters you will have very little sorrow. Our troubles mostly grow from the root of self-will; but when self-will is conquered and we hold ourselves entirely at God's disposal then there is a sweetness even in wormwood and gall, and our heaviest cross becomes our joy and delight, and we say with holy Rutherford, "I find the cross of Christ no more a burden to me than wings are to a bird, or sails are to a ship." That saintly man said that sometimes he felt so deeply in love with his cross that he almost feared lest his sufferings and grief should become so lovely to him as to be a rival to the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no such danger I am afraid with the most of us, for we are as bullocks unaccustomed to the yoke, and we kick against the pricks. But if you can wait upon your Master and say, "Do with me as thou wilt, Lord," all will be well. Try to be like the shepherd on Salisbury Plain, whose story should never be forgotten. When he was asked, "Is it good weather?" he answered, "Yes, it is all good weather that God sends." "But does this weather please you?" "If it pleases God, it pleases me," was his reply. That is the point to get to; may God bring us there by his grace!
O brethren, the thought of waiting upon Christ and being his servant is an unspeakable honor; therefore I will not try to speak about it, but ask you just to sit still and think about it. You are his servants, the servants of the eternal Son of God. Perhaps somebody is going to be made an earl or a duchess. I do not think that would be any honor to you, for you have a higher honor than that already, for you are a servant of the Lord. There will be a coronet for somebody to wear; but really I do not see that it could add any lustre to you, for you are a prince of the blood-royal of the skies. As for our pedigree, there is none like it; we do not trace it to the Normans but to Calvary; we are of that seed that was to crush the serpent's head. Our coat of arms is much more ancient than any that the Heralds' College can ever issue; we need no other honor and can have no higher glory than to be servants of Christ. Are you only a little nurse-girl? Well, if you belong to Christ you are one of those whom he counts right honorable. Are you a chimneysweep, my brother? Never mind that; if the Lord has washed you in his precious blood you are as noble as any peer of the realm, and nobler than most of them. Do you have to go to the workhouse for weekly help? Never mind about your poverty, you are not so poor now as your Lord was, for he had not where to lay his head. Do not talk about being mean and obscure; why, you are descended from the King of kings! "This honor have all his saints," "Unto you that believe he is an honor,"
--that is the meaning of the Greek; and I take it that it is honor enough for us to have such a Savior to believe in, and such a Master to serve.
You shall have honor dear friends, among poor fellow-Christians. If you really honor your Master's name alone it will not be long before they will honor and esteem you. I notice that the moment a man begins to seek honor for himself he loses the esteem of his fellows. Do you ever hear any minister who preaches very grandly? If so you think to yourself, "What a splendid preacher he is!" But you will find that as a rule God's people do not care much about him. Notice any worker in the church who wants to be very prominent and push himself forward; everybody desires to kick him; but there is another brother who serves Christ in the rear rank, and who blushes when he is pushed to the front, he is the man to whom his brethren and sisters look up, and though they may say little to him they delight to honor him in their hearts. Perhaps the most honorable thing in Christ's house is the doormat; when all the brethren wipe their dirty boots upon it they are so much the cleaner. I know some people who do not like to be in the position of the doormat; if a person brushes against them they cry, "What a shame!" It is a great honor to do anything for your Master's children which will be for their good. In the kingdom of God the way to go up is to go down, and the way to grow great is to grow little. Look at little Paul--that man short of stature and with many infirmities. Why, he is the biggest of all the apostles! And what is "great Paul"? Oh! he is only sounding brass and the less we hear of him the better. Get to be like little Paul, brother, and your sound shall go out to the very ends of the earth; whereas if you are ever a big Paul you will only give out a brazen note which will be heard for a very little way. If the Lord Jesus Christ has made us to be his servants, let us count it our highest honor to be a servant of the least of his servants that so we may bless them and glorify him.
But our highest honor is yet to come in that day when Christ shall call his chosen ones to his own right hand to reign with him, when he shall appoint unto them a kingdom even as his Father appointed it to him, when he who was faithful in a few things shall be made ruler over many things in the kingdom of the Master for ever and for ever. I think I see the King come into his court; it is crowded with cherubim and seraphim and all the shining ones that form his royal retinue. There they stand in all their gorgeous glory, and the Master from the throne looks over all their ranks as he accepts their loyal and reverent homage. But he is looking for one poor man who on earth loved him and who kept the faith under much derision and scorn; at last he spies him out and says, "Make way my angelic servants, cherubim and seraphim, stand in line and let him come. This man was with me in my humiliation as you could not be; for me he bore the cross and was despised; make way and let him come and sit with me, for they who have been with me in my humiliation shall be with me in my glory."
Oh, that you and I, dear friends, may have that honor at the last! And what will we do when we get it? Why, we will cast our crowns at our
Savior's feet and say unto him, "Not unto us, not unto us, but unto thy name be all the praise and glory for ever," and in that very deed we
shall find the highest honor of all, and we shall then perhaps
recollect this Thursday evening and this text, "He that waiteth on his master shall be honored." The Lord bless you all, for Jesus Christ's
sake! Amen.
If a man in Palestine carefully watched his fig tree and kept it in proper condition, he was sure to be abundantly rewarded in due season, for it would yield him a large quantity of fruit of which he would enjoy the luscious taste. So according to Solomon, good servants obtained honor as the fruit of diligent service. In those early days when there were far better relations between servants and masters than unhappily there are nowadays, if a servant carefully waited upon his master he was sure to be honored for his faithfulness. The Bible is full of such cases. Eleazar, the servant and steward of Abraham, met with much honor at his master's hands. Deborah was a faithful nurse, and what sorrow there was for her at Allon-bachuth, or the oak of weeping. Elisha poured water upon the hands of his master Elijah, and became himself a prophet endowed with a double portion of his master's spirit. In the New Testament we read of the centurion who so honored his servant that in his sickness he sent to the Lord Jesus, earnestly entreating him to come and heal him. There were exceptions of course. There were faithful servants who met with ungenerous treatment; but what rule is there without an exception? The rule was that he who was faithful to his master received honor. I could wish it to be more general for there to be intimate friendly relationships between men and their servants; I would fain see a restoration of family loyalty
between heads of households and their dependents. In these times, servants and persons in the employ of others are looked upon as hands to be worked, rather than as souls to be cared for. It may be that servants have degenerated, but it may also be the truth that masters have degenerated too. I believe that every Abraham will be likely to find an Eleazar, and every Rebekah a Deborah. Good masters make good servants. Good servants make good masters. Happy is the family where, without forgetting the proper distinctions of position, all are knit together in firm friendship. Alas! the bonds of society have been too much loosened. Oppression on the one hand and discontent on the other have rent the commonwealth. Yet there still survive among us instances of personal attachment where servants have served the same masters from their youth up, have continued with them in sickness and in misfortune, have remained faithful to the family when the master has been scarcely able to remunerate them for their services, and have continued faithful even unto death. I am sure when we have read such stories or seen such servants ourselves, we have felt that they deserved to be had in honor, and there is a general respect still which is manifested by mankind to the servant that waiteth upon his master. However, I am not going to speak about the duties of masters and servants this evening. At other times we have not hesitated to speak our mind upon that matter, and we shall not fail to do so as occasion requires.
But now we shall speak of a higher Master who was never unfaithful to a servant yet, and never will be; and we shall speak of a superior service which brings to those who are engaged in it the highest possible degree of honor. Blessed are they who are servants of the King of kings. Happy is he who takes even the lowest place and fulfils the meanest office for the Lord Jesus, if any service can be mean that is rendered to our all-glorious Immanuel.
We will begin by considering the relation of the Lord Jesus Christ to us, and ours to him; then we shall consider the conduct which is consistent with that relation; and then the reward which is promised to such conduct.
I speak now of course only to you who are converted, to you who are true believers and are saved by faith in Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus is to you your Master, in the sense of contrast to all other governing powers. You are men, and naturally moved by that which moves other men, but still, the master motive power with every one of you who is a Christian is the supremacy of Christ. There are some among your fellow servants to whom you render respect, just as in a large firm there are foremen set over different parts of the work, to whom a measure of deference is fitly rendered. Still, as the overseer is not the chief authority, so your earthly superiors are not masters over you in the highest sense. The highest of your fellow workmen in your Lord's service is far, far, far below the Master; ministers and fathers in Christ are not the ultimate authorities to whom you bow, and whatever esteem you may pay even to such glorious names as those of Peter, and James, and John, you still regard them but as your fellow servants. "One is your Master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren." In this sense we are not servants of men, yea, we know no man after the flesh. We are in subjection to the Father of Spirits, but neither to Pope in Rome, nor bishop at home; we are the Lord's free men and cheerfully obey those whom he sets over us in his church: but we yield to none who claim lordship over us and would divert us from obeying the Lord Jesus only.
