Spurgeon: Sermons on Proverbs (85 page)
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Authors: Charles Spurgeon
This loathing comes of a soul's being full, and souls may be full in a great many ways. Some are full because they have never yet discovered their natural depravity and nothingness, have never known that they are condemned by the law of God. These full souls who are what they always were, good people as they have always been from their birth, do not want a Savior, and therefore they despise him. Why should those that are whole value a physician? Is he not intended for the sick? Alas for you full ones, for your time of hunger will come when there will be no more feasts of love, and then as Dives could not obtain a drop of water you also will be denied a crumb of consolation.
Some people are full with enjoying the world. They have wealth and they are perfectly content with it; or they have no wealth but still they are pleased with the grovelling pursuits of their class. Their thoughts never rise; they are like the cock on the dunghill that scratched up a diamond and said, "I would sooner have found a grain of barley." They are satisfied if they have enough to eat and drink and wear, but they think not of divine things. They are full of the world and therefore loathe the honeycomb.
Some are full of confidence in outward religiousness. They were christened when they were babes and they were confirmed, and if that does not save people what will? A bishop's hands laid on you! Think of that!! Since that they have taken the sacrament, and they have always been told that if you go regularly to your place of worship, and especially if you pay twenty shillings in the pound you will do very well--at least if you do not what will become of your neighbors? These full souls do not appreciate free grace and dying love, and salvation by the blood of Christ seems to them to be but idle babble.
Some are full of self-conceit--they know everything-- they are great readers and profound philosophers. Their thoughts have dived to the bottom of infinity; they are so nice in their criticisms that they
Others are full of the pride of rank. Yes, they are very glad to hear that the poor people hear the gospel, and they have no doubt that the plain preaching of the gospel is very useful to the lower orders, but respectable people who live in the West End and ride in carriages do not require such preaching; they are too respectable to need saving, and so their full souls loathe the honeycomb.
But we need not stop any longer talking about them, for we shall do them no good as long as they are full. If the angel Gabriel were to preach Christ to them it would be as a sounding brass and as a tinkling cymbal. Serve up the meat as well as you may, but never will it be appreciated till the guest has an appetite. The Lord send them an appetite by the work of his Holy Spirit!
III. And so I close with the third point, which is this --there are some who do appreciate the sweetness of Christ. I would to God I could find such out this morning. Hungry souls we are, brethren. If you are hungry after pardon, mercy, and grace, I remember when I was in your condition. What would you give to have Christ? "I would give my eyes," says one. Give him your eyes then by looking to him and you shall have him. "What would I give," saith one, "to be delivered from my besetting sin! I hunger after holiness." Soul, you may have deliverance from besetting sins and have it for nothing. Jesus Christ has come into the world to save his people from their sins, and looking to him he will deliver you from that disease which now makes you love sin, and he will give you a taste for holiness and a principle of holiness by the Holy Ghost, and you shall henceforth become a saint unto God. He turns lions into lambs and ravens into doves; nothing is impossible with him. You have but to trust your soul with him and you shall have pardon, peace, holiness, heaven, God, everything.
Those who hunger are those then who know the sweetness of Christ, but they must do more than that: being hungry they must feed, for though the text does not say so, it is very clear that merely being hungry does not make meat sweet, it is only sweet when you eat it. If meat were placed where we could not reach it and we were hungry, we should be inclined to think it bitter, after the model of the fox and the grapes in the fable. If there were a Savior but we could not reach him, it would make our life still more miserable. Poor soul, if you want Christ receive him, it is all you have to do. The bread is before you, eat it. The fitness which is needed for eating is an appetite --you have it: lay to then, by holy faith; receive Christ into yourself and he will be sweet indeed to you.
The text says that the hungry man's appetite makes even bitter things sweet. Is there anything bitter in Christ? Yes, there was much in him that was bitter to himself, and that is the very sweetest part to us. Those pangs and griefs of his, and woes unutterable, and bloody death, how bitter! The wormwood and the gall were his, but to our believing soul these bitter things are honeycombs. Christ is best loved when we view him as crucified for us.
There are other bitters with Christ. We must repent of sin, and to carnal minds it is a bitter thing to hate sin and leave it; but to those who hunger after Christ repentance is one of the daintiest of graces. Christ requires of his people self-denial and self-sacrifice, and unrenewed nature nauseates these things, but souls eager after Jesus are glad to deny themselves, glad to give of their substance, glad even to suffer hardships for his dear sake; even bitter things for him are sweet.
There are doctrines also which are very distasteful to carnal minds; they cannot away with them, they are angry when they are preached even as those who left our Lord when he said "Except ye eat my flesh and drink my blood, there is no life in you." Those who hunger after Christ prize the doctrines of grace; only let them know what Jesus teaches and every syllable is at once acceptable to their minds.
It may be there are ordinances which you shrink from; you have felt baptism especially to be a cross, but when your soul fully knows the sweetness of Christ and your mind perceives that it is his ordinance, you feel at once that the bitter thing is sweet to you for his dear sake. Possibly you may have to suffer some measure of persecution and be despised and nick-named for Jesus' sake. Thank God they cannot imprison you and put you to death, but even if they could, if you have an appetite for Christ you will eat the bitter herbs as well as the Paschal Lamb and think that they do well together. Christ and his cross
--you will give your love to both and shoulder the cross right bravely, and find it a sweet thing to be despised for the love of Jesus Christ your Lord.
Have but an appetite for Christ and the little prayer meeting, though there be but few poor people at it, will be sweet to you. That poor broken-down preaching which is the best that the minister is able to give, will become sweet to you because there is a savor of Christ in it. If you can only get a leaf torn out of the Bible, or half a leaf, it will be precious to you. Even to hear a child sing a hymn about Christ will be pleasant. You remember Dr. Guthrie, when dying, asking his friend to sing him "a bairn's hymn." He wanted a child's hymn then; a little simple ditty about Christ was what the grand old man desired in his departing moments; and when your soul hungers after Jesus Christ you will love simple things if they speak of him. You will not be so dainty as some of you are. You must have a comfortable cushion to sit upon; when you are hungry you are glad to stand in the aisles. Full souls must needs have a very superior preacher; they say of the most successful evangelist, there is nothing in him, he only tells a lot of anecdotes: but when you are hungry you will rejoice that the man preaches Christ and the faults will vanish. I remember my father telling me when I was a boy and did not like my breakfast, that he thought it would do me good to be sent to the Union-house for a month and see if did not get an appetite. Many Christians need to be sent under the law a little while and Moses would cure them of
squeamishness, so that when they came back to Jesus and his love they would have a zest for the gospel.
The lesson from all this is--pray for a good appetite for Christ, and when you have it keep it. Do not spoil it with the unsatisfying
dainties of the world, or by sucking down modern notions and sceptical philosophies--those gingerbreads and unhealthy sweetmeats so much cried up now-a-days. Do not waste a good appetite upon anything less sweet than the true honeycomb. When you have got that appetite for Christ, indulge it. Do not be afraid at any time of having too much of Christ. Some of our brethren seem alarmed lest they should grow perfect against their wills. Dear brother, go into that river as far as you please, there is no likelihood of your being drowned. You will never have too much grace, or peace, or faith, or consecration. Go in for the whole thing; indulge your appetite to the very full. We cannot say it to our children with honey before them, but we may say it to God's children with Christ before them--"Eat, yea, eat abundantly."
Pray the Lord to give other people appetites. It is a grand thing to hear of ten and twenty thousand rushing to hear the gospel; I hope it is because they are hungering for it. When the Lord gives the people the appetite I am certain he will find them the meat, for it is always true in God's family that whenever he sends a mouth he always sends meat for it, and if any one of you has a mouth for Christ this morning, come to him and be filled to the full.
While you pray to God to give others an appetite, try and create it. How can you create it? Many an appetite has been created in the streets amongst poor starving wretches by their passing the place where provision is prepared--the very smell of it has made their mouths water. Tell sinners how happy you are; tell sinners what Christ has done for you; tell them how he has pardoned you, how he has renewed your nature; tell them about your glorious hope, tell them how saints can live and die triumphant in Christ and you will set their mouth a-watering. That is half the battle; when once they have an appetite they are sure to have the meat. May the Lord the Holy Spirit send that appetite to sinners throughout the whole of London, and to Jesus Christ who satisfies all comers shall be glory for ever. Amen.
Solomon spoke from observation. He had seen certain persons of a vagrant kind, and he perceived that they seldom or never prospered. Moreover, he spoke from inspiration as well as from observation, hence the sagacity of the philosopher is in this case supported by the austerity of the preacher. We may therefore take this proverb, first, as the dictate of human wisdom gathered by long experience; and then, next, as the testimony of divine wisdom, commended to us by infallible revelation. The principle it inculcates is alike applicable to the common affairs of life and to the higher pursuits which belong to our spiritual interests.
In the common affairs of life we believe Solomon to be correct in his statement that "as a bird that wandereth from her nest, so is a man that wandereth from his place." The unrest of that man's mind, and the instability of his conduct who is constantly making a change of his position and purpose, augurs no success for any of his adventures. Unless he maketh the change very wisely and hath abundant reason for it, he will make a change for the worse as the bird doth that leaveth her nest. Some make a change of their country and fly from their native shores. This is not an ill thing for men to do, for thereby nations have been formed and deserts have been peopled. When a man finds it impossible to provide bread for an increasing family in this country, one of the wisest things that he can do is to cross the sea and seek profitable employment in another land. But there are some spirits of such a moving caste that they seem never to be satisfied at home. They feel persuaded that if they were under other skies they would succeed, whereas as a matter of general fact a man who cannot prosper in England will not prosper anywhere, and many of those who have gone abroad would be but too glad to get home again. Without taking great counsel from God and weighing the matter long, it is ill for a man to leave the Christian privileges of this country, let alone other considerations; it is ill I say, to turn aside from the place where sanctuaries are so numerous and where the gospel is so clearly proclaimed, to go abroad where there may be some pecuniary advantages, but where there must be much spiritual loss. Let the man take anxious thought before he goes or else, mayhap, when he finds himself in Australia he will long to be in New Zealand, and when he does not prosper there he will pant for the United States, and not getting on there, he will perhaps be wanting to came back to Old England, and so he will spend the best of his days in vacillating as to where he shall spend them.
The like is also true with respect to a change of occupation. Some persons are one thing to-day but you do not know what they will be tomorrow. Evidently they were not cut out for this, and therefore they think they must have been ordained for that, and as they have not thrived in one line of business they feel certain that they must have made a little mistake, and that if they could get into another line they would prosper. Well, when a man is in error about his calling, if it really be not his calling, let him leave it; but let him first be
sure that it is not his calling, for otherwise he will sin against the express words of inspiration. The apostle Paul says "Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called"--that is to say, the occupation or profession in life you were engaged in when you were converted need not be rashly abandoned. Therein you may enjoy communion with God. But if you go running before the cloud, and with presumptuous self-will get out of the path that Providence has assigned you, you will be sure to smart for it. It is ours to follow, never to lead.
Where we clearly see our way, thither let us go; and unless we have that way clearly manifested to us let us abide still in our nest.
