Spurgeon: Sermons on Proverbs (80 page)

It is ours also, if we are servants, to obey the Master willingly and for love of his person. The text says, "He that waiteth upon his master shall be honored." Suppose I as a minister know something to be God's will, yet nevertheless attend to it with the view of serving you and doing you good as God's church; I shall possibly receive honor from you whom I serve, but that is not the honor which a Christian minister ought to seek. The church is not his master; his Master is in heaven and if he desires real honor he must earn it by waiting upon his Master for his Master's sake. Suppose any of you are children and are doing right in order to please your parents--I will not censure the motive; you will get honor from your parents; but the right honor is gained by seeking to please God. You must labor as believers to wait upon your Master; to come to the house of God for instance, not because it is the custom, but because you would honor the Lord in prayer and praise; you must give to the poor, not because others have given so much but because Jesus loves his people to be mindful of poor saints; you must do good, not that others may say "See what a zealous man he is!" but for your Master's sake. I am afraid we sometimes serve ourselves even in our holiest things, and in carrying out our judgment of the Lord's will we are often the victims of prejudice or whim, and are not so much determined to do the Lord's will as to have our own, or to carry out what we call our "principles" in order to show that we are not to be cowed by opposition. Ah, brethren, there must be no motive with us but our Master's honor. "He that waiteth on his master shall be honored." Wait on your Master. Take care that you have an eye always to him. Do your duty because he bids you. Then you shall win the honor of which the text speaks.

Then observe that this waiting upon the Master is to be performed personally by the servant. It is not, "The servant who employs another to wait upon his master shall be honored," I do not so read the text, but "He that waiteth upon his master" himself, doing personal service to a personal master--he shall have honor. Jesus Christ did not redeem us by proxy. He himself-- his own self--bare our sins in his own body on the tree. Let us not attempt to serve God by merely contributing to the foreign mission, or City Mission, or helping to support the minister, or something of that sort. We should do that, but we should not put it in the place of the other. Let us constantly give our personal service, speaking for Christ with these lips, pleading for his kingdom with this heart, running on his errands with these feet, and serving him with these hands.

"He that waiteth on his master shall be honored," even though the waiting be almost passive. Sometimes our master may not require us to do anything more than stand still. But you know John the footman behind his master's chair, if his master bids him stand there he is as true a servant as the other attendant who is sent upon an errand of the utmost importance. The Lord for wise reasons may make us wait awhile. Having done all, we may yet have to stand still and see the salvation of God and find it to be the hardest work of all. In suffering especially is that the case; for it is painful to be laid aside from the Master's service; yet the position may be very honorable. There is a time for soldiers to lie in the trenches as well as to fight in the battle. David made a law that those who tarried with the baggage were to share the spoil with those who went down to the fight. This is the rule of the church militant to this day. Some cannot march to the battle, yet are they to share in the spoil; they are waiting on their Master and they shall be honored.

On the whole, summing all up in a word, it is ours to abide near to Christ. Servants wait best when they can see their master's eye and hear his wish. We are to wait upon our Master humbly, reverently, feeling it an honor to do anything for him. We are to be
self-surrendered, given up henceforth to the Lord, free men, and yet most truly serfs of this Great Emperor. We are never so truly free as when we own our sacred serfdom. We are henceforth the body servants of the Lord Jesus Christ. Often Paul calls himself the servant the Lord, and even the slave of Christ, and he glories in the branding iron's marks upon his flesh. "I bear," says he, "in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus; henceforth let no man trouble me." We count it liberty to bear the bonds of Christ. We reckon this to be supremest freedom for we sing with the psalmist, "I am thy servant; I am thy servant. Thou hast loosed my bonds." "Bind the sacrifice with cords, even with cords to the horns of the altar." Such is the conduct which our servitude to our Lord requires.

III. The third point is the reward which surely comes to the faithful servants. "He that waiteth on his master shall be honored." You will observe that he finds his honor in waiting on his master. Now the Christian may have other honors besides the one of waiting on his Master. He may have poor, wretched, miserable, laded honors. I am always sorry when I see a Christian making himself some great one in the world's esteem. I knew one, and I esteemed him much. He was an earnest Christian man, but his great ambition was to be the chief magistrate in a certain city which I shall not name. He lived to reach that post, and his heart exulted greatly; but I noticed that the very night he attained the honor the hand of the Lord went forth against one whom he greatly loved, and in a short time he himself sickened and went home to his Father and his God. No joy came with the honor for he had looked at it too long and with too keen an eye. Not I alone, but those who knew him judged so too, and we almost thanked God that he did not suffer the child of God, whose crown was in heaven, to be satisfied with being a magistrate here. I have seen men grow very eager after gold; they have had a good business but have clutched at more, and got it, and then sought after more still; and when I have seen chastening come and sorrow in the household I have not marvelled at it, for I have understood that Christ meant his servant to take honor from him, and if he would look after other honor he would find it but a bitter-sweet. There is a law, I believe, that no subject of Our Majesty may take princely rank from any foreign potentate, and it is a law in the kingdom of Christ. What honor can this world confer upon a servant of Christ? I count that to be a scullion in Christ's kitchen would be a greater honor than to be the Czar of all the Russias, or to exercise imperial sway over all the kingdoms of the earth at once. Honour! Ye confer honor upon the servant of Christ--ye worldlings! As well might emmets upon their anthills hope to confer dignity upon an angel! Already infinitely superior, it is but degradation to a saint to be honored by the sons of men. The servant of Christ finds his honor in the service itself. The cultivator of the fig tree looks for figs from the fig tree; the servant of the Master looks for honor from the Master and he covets no honor besides.

Every faithful servant of Christ is honored in his Master's honor. If you serve Christ aright you will have to bear his reproach. You must take your share of the cross for you have already your share of the crown. Thanks be to God who always causes us to triumph in every place. Paul and the other apostles, when they were suffering for Christ, were always triumphing in Christ at the same time. If there be any honor in the cause of truth and righteousness and the salvation of men Christ has it all, but he reflects some of it upon those of his servants who espouse his righteous cause and propagate his truth. "He that waiteth on his master is honored" by being permitted to wait upon such a Master. The honor of the Master falls upon the servant, who is honourably distinguished by wearing the livery of the great Prince.

He is honored too, with his Master's approval. Did you ever feel that Christ approved of you? You did some little act of love which nobody knew of but your Lord; he smiled on you, you knew he did, and you felt superabundantly rewarded. You served him and you were reviled for it, but you took it very joyfully, for you felt that he knew all about it, and as long as your Master was satisfied it did not signify what man could do unto you. For the true Christian, his Lord's approval is honor enough.

Sometimes the Lord honors faithful servants by giving them more to do. If they have been faithful in that which is least, he tries them in that which is great. If they have looked after a few little children, and fed the lambs, he says, "Come hither and feed my sheep." If they have trimmed a vine or a fig tree in a corner, he calls them out and sets them among the chief vines of the vineyard and says to them, "See after these clusters." Many a man would have been called to wider fields of labor if he had not been discontented or slothful in his narrow sphere. The Lord watches how we do little things, and if great care be taken in them he will give us greater things to do. Elisha poured water upon the hands Elijah, and then the Lord says "Elijah's mantle shall fall upon his faithful servant and he shall do even greater miracles."

God also honors the faithful in the eyes of their fellow servants. When I take down from my library-shelf the biography of a holy man, I honor him in my soul. I do not mind whether he was a bishop or a Primitive Methodist preacher, a blacksmith or a peer, I do him honor in my heart. If he served his Master he will be sure to be elevated into a position of honor in the memory of succeeding ages. There are some men whose doctrines you and I could not endorse, who yet were faithful to the light they had, and therefore we number them amongst the honored dead, and we are glad to recollect how bold they were against the foe, how meek they were with the little ones, how faithful they were in believing their God, and how courageous in rebuking sin. If you would have honor from your fellow servants you will never get it by seeking honor from them; you must go to your Master and honor him by waiting upon him, and then there will come to you honor in the eyes of your fellow men.

But beloved the chief honor of a faithful servant comes from the blessed Trinity. "If any man will serve me, him will my Father honor." Does it not appear too good to be true that a poor man should be honored of God the Father, the Creator, the great I AM! I will not speak about it but leave you to think it over.
And then Jesus Christ will honour us; for he says that when the master comes and finds the servant waiting for him, he will gird himself and serve him. Can you understand that? There was a certain saturnalia amongst the Romans which was observed once a year, in which the masters changed places with the servants entirely, and the servants sat at the table and commanded their masters as they liked, while the masters served them. It has been thought by some that our Savior has drawn the figure from that singular celebration. I hardly think that it can be so for he would scarcely have cared to use such an illustration. To think of the great Master serving us is strange indeed; yet he has done it. He did so when he took a towel and washed his disciples' feet, and he will do it again, he will gird himself and serve us.

The Holy Spirit will honor us too, for the Holy Spirit often puts great honor upon a faithful man in a way that I cannot explain to you except by a figure. Moses had been a faithful servant and the skin of his face shone when he came down from the mount. Stephen was a faithful servant, and when he stood up to confront his adversaries he was full of the Holy Ghost and a glory gleamed from his face. When the Spirit of God is richly in a man, and that man is faithful to his Master, some gleamings of a supernal splendor will come from him, not visible to human eyes but potent over human hearts. Believers will feel its power, for as one of our poets says, when a good man is in company tis even as though an angel shook his wings. You feel the influence of the man and almost without a word from him, he has honor in the eyes of them that sit at meat with him, for the Holy Ghost is upon him.

Now dear brethren and sisters, I close by saying we ought faithfully to serve, for we have before us the greatest conceivable reward, a reward which grace enables us to gain. That precious blood which cleanses us cleanses our service also, it makes us white as snow and it makes our service white too. We and our work are both accepted in the Beloved. A Christian's works are good works: let no one say they are not, for they are the work of the Spirit of God, and who shall say they are not good? It is an encouragement to go forward when we know that "he that keepeth the fig tree shall eat the fruit thereof;" and that "the servant who waiteth on his master shall be honored."

There is a black side to this, upon which, suffer ye one word. He who doth not serve Jesus Christ will not be honored. In the day when the Lord cometh many that sleep in the dust shall awake, some to glory, but some to shame and everlasting contempt. Oh, the contempt that will be poured upon ungodly men at the last judgment! When God holds up the mirror and they see themselves, they will despise their own image; and when God holds up their characters to men and angels, revealing to all created beings their secret deeds, their evil motives, their base designs, their filthy imaginations, there will go up against such men dying without faith in Christ a universal hiss of general execration; to think that they would not believe God but made God a liar; would not accept the sacrifice of Christ but trod the blood of the covenant under foot as an unholy thing. Redeemed men will cry, "Shame!" Unfallen angels will cry "Shame!" Holy spirits from a thousand worlds will cry "Shame!" And it will be everlasting contempt. Nothing stings a man like contempt. The poorest among us does not like to be despised, however poor he may be. You do not like to be pointed at and be made the object of derision, yet sinner, this will be your portion. If you die without believing in Jesus you will wake up to shame and to everlasting contempt. "Shame shall be the portion of fools"--such shame! Oh, be ashamed to-day that you may not be ashamed then! Penitent, shame will lead you to fly to Christ and put your trust in him, and then your transgressions shall be blotted out for ever. May the Spirit lead each one of you to repentance for Jesus' sake. Amen.