Spurgeon: Sermons on Proverbs (86 page)

This also applies to those who want to be always changing their situation and their acquaintance--masters never satisfied with their servants, and servants always discontented with their employers. We know many who say, "There are so many temptations in the place where I am; I will try another." Well, I do not know, dear friends, that you are right. The temptations that trouble me, I would rather endure them than encounter any fresh ones. I may know something about my weakness in the present trial but I cannot know how I might stagger under another. I should recommend you to be rather wary of changing your trials. To exchange one trial for another is all the relief you will get in this world. All is vanity under the sun. The whole creation groaneth together. Amidst sorrow and sighing thus universal, our lot is cast. From the sick man's bitter experience, as Dr. Watts descries it, we cannot escape-

"We toss from aide to side in pain,

 

But tis a poor relief we gain

 

I'd shift the place,

 

but not the pain."

You may your change your position o'er and o'er again, but you will always be exposed to the temptation. Until you get beyond yonder azure sky, you will never be out of gunshot of the devil. Evil spirits molest every rank in life. The poor man is sore beset with grievous hardships and the rich man is encompassed with seductive snares. He who toils with his hand may have some cause to complain, but he who toils with his brain will become the victim of a sorer complaint. Should you fly to the utmost verge of the green earth, temptation would still pursue you. Everywhere, while you are in the body, you must keep guard, for temptations and trials are the common portion of all that on this earth do dwell. Be not in a hurry therefore to fly from one scene of temptation to another. If God ordains that your lot should be altered, be it so. It is yours to accept his allotment either with resignation or with gratitude. But be not hasty or heedless in running from one place to another, lest in yielding to the impulse of a moment you forfeit the comfort of a lifetime.

It may be that these remarks are peculiarly applicable to some people here present. I cannot tell. When talking about such homely things our words have sometimes proved to be like an oracle for the guidance of those that have come up to God's house to enquire in his temple. At any rate dear friends, when the mind is unhinged or the feelings chafed, it is not easy to exercise a wise discretion. Wait upon God for guidance as to any change in life you may determine, and if the two things be equal--to remain where you are, or to remove elsewhere--choose to abide still, for speaking according to man's judgment, the chances are in its favor. Reason seems to say that, as it is unwise for the bird to wander from her nest, so it is not desirable for you to wander from your place.

Still keeping to the common use of these words let us now turn them to another account. This is most certainly true in changing one's religious service in the cause of God. We have a niche perhaps in which God has placed us, and we have had some little honor in filling it; but by-and-bye another sphere of labor opens up before us, and like children easily charmed with novelty, we think we could be more useful in doing something else and leaving our old work. Let us be very careful in this matter, for "as a bird that wandereth from her nest so is a man that wandereth from his place." I admired one thing greatly in our deceased friend, Mr. Worcester, who for so long a time kept the gate outside. When I once asked him whether he could not be serviceable to the church as an elder, he said that if he were elected to it he should decline the office, because, he said, "I can do my work as a gate-keeper but I do not know what I could do as an elder." So he resolved to stick to the work in which he was acknowledged to do good service. I would have each Christian man do the same.

Some brethren we know have such an itching to get into the pulpit that they are impatient of any other office than the preacher's. But there are many in the pulpit now-a-days who had better have kept out of it. They were excellent people at prayer meetings; they were very serviceable indeed to give a little address now and then at a cottage-meeting; they would have been useful deacons, exemplary visitors of the sick, and perhaps good city missionaries. But they thought within themselves that the pulpit ought to be blessed by their distinguished abilities, and so they crept up the pulpit stairs as little to their own comfort as to the church's edification; and now had they but the wisdom and the humility to come down again never more to mount them, it would be well. If you be really called to the ministry, then in God's name do not stand back from it; and if a new sphere of labor opens to you, accept it, resting on your God who can make his strength perfect in your weakness; but be not for ever panting after the highest seats in the synagogue; do not always want the uppermost place at the feast, lest when the King cometh in thou shouldest have with shame to take a lower room. Wait till the King says, "Friend, come up higher"; never go up higher till you have the King's friendly admonition that the higher place is yours by a call other than your own choice, remembering that "as a bird that wandereth from her nest so is a man that wandereth from his place"--from his place, from his proper place in the Church of God, his proper position in the ranks of the Lord's hosts.

Again, I will use it as a proverb very often applicable to ministers. There may be some here to whom this may come as a powerful rebuke. It is a crying evil just now, especially in our own denomination, that ministers are changing their places. The good old ministers used to occupy one charge for fifty years, and the people used to love them and to hold fast to them. They did not think of moving, they never spoke of resigning any more than fathers speak of resigning their fatherhood because their boys and girls are sometimes disobedient. They weathered the storm. They knew that all parts of the sea are rough, so they did not want to get out of one bay into another as soon as a little storm came on. I do not know but that some preachers are better moving, and probably they would be better if they were moved off altogether. I think when a man remains in service at one place for only about two years he has need to question whether he was called into the ministry at all. God does not generally plant trees in his vineyard that need shifting every two years. God's trees are full of sap, the cedars of Lebanon which he hath planted. They can stand on the bare mountain's brow and see the ages of mortals swept away into the tomb. And so a Godsent minister may stand many years in one place, and see man-made ministers swept away like generations of lichens and mosses because they have no divine life in them. I love to see a Christian minister, I must say, standing fast in his place. We are not to get into a great pet because there was a little disagreement at a church-meeting, or turn round offended because some deacon will not be quite as pliable as we could wish, or because the neighborhood does not seem to increase, or because there are not quite so many conversions as we want. No sirs, if God shall move us let us move; but if he doth not move us, let not the devil do it. Do you know what happens when the bird wanders from her nest? Why, there are her own eggs in the nest, and there is no bird which can sit so well on the eggs as the bird that laid them. And so a Christian minister should recollect that there are some young converts who are his own spiritual children. They are of his own bringing in through divine grace, and ordinarily speaking there is no man who can by any means nurture the young converts like the man who was the means of their conversion. It is well for infants to be brought up by their own mother, and it is a good thing for young converts to be fed under their own spiritual parents. I should not like to trust mine to anybody else for any great length of time. There is always a fear, when the parent bird is away, that the eggs will grow cold and addled, so that when she comes back she will find that she has lost all her trouble. And so when the minister leaves his people and goes away to some other place, there are many of those who did seem to run well who will turn back. This is a sad result; a tale of wasted labor. Besides, the bird knows that, however uncomfortable its nest may be, there is no other nest in the world so comfortable as the one which it has made itself. And the Christian minister must know that there is no other church so comfortable for him as the church which he was the means of forming. "I dwell among my own people," said the Shunamite. That is my happiness and my joy, to dwell among my own people, and if any man should say to me "Is there anything in life that thou desires? Wouldest thou be spoken for to the king, or to the captain of the hosts?" I would answer, No, there is nothing I desire under heaven but to dwell among my own people; if I may but seek their good and see the Church of God prosper here it shall be all that I ask of my God this side of heaven. Brethren, let us who are in the ministry then, as far as possible, cling to our churches and to our fields of labor, remembering that "as a bird that wandereth from her nest so is a man that wandereth from his place."

This is equally true of our hearers. Oh! there are some hearers who are sad, sad vagrants. We can have no objection to our hearers going to listen to other ministers if ever they can be edified thereby, for the bird that sits best on the nest must come off sometimes, especially if there is any food to be had elsewhere. Hear anybody that can profit you. I am sure nothing will make me more glad than to know that you are anywhere, as long as your souls are fed. If a Church of England minister preaches the gospel in your neighborhood better than the Baptist minister does to not go and hear the Baptist; and if you find either Baptist or Independent treating you to free will instead of free-grace, do not listen to them but seek out the Presbyterian, and hear him if you find him more sound in the faith; for after all your souls must be fed. That is a matter of necessity. Where you can have all the points of the truth, prefer it, prefer it infinitely; but if
you cannot have them all give your chief care to those which possess the greater importance. Seek first, in this case, those things which make most for your souls' prosperity. But what I do not like is this--certain people will join a church, and then after about six months will join another church, and then another, and then another. They ought to have no moss on them, and I suppose they have none, for they have been rolling stones certainly. And then if the minister should die how many there are who are off directly, for now that the church is in a little difficulty they will all get out of it. Brave
sailors these! They want to get into the boat when the ship is in a little bit of gale, and they leave the Church of God just when their help is most wanted. Oh! they will come and join the church when the church prospers; yes, any quantity of them; but I wonder, if the pastor went away, whether we should find them all remaining faithful. Too many in our London churches are a sort of flying camp, always flying from one place to another--a set of gypsy-Christians who have no settled abode and no "local habitation," and are about as respectable as the Gypsies with whom I have compared them. Now never let this be said of any of you who love your Lord and who consequently love his Church, but when you are united with his people, say: -

"Here would I make my settled rest,

 

While others go and come;

 

No more a stranger, or a guest,

 

But like a child at home."

You shall find that your wandering shall do you but little good after all, while in permanent adhesion to the church and a diligent casting in of your whole efforts into the cause of God, shall through the Holy Spirit give your soul prosperity.

But now I shall take my text in another way and try to use the general principle in another sense.

 

II. Some men wander from their place in spiritual things.

Where is the "place" for a sinner? The place for to sinner is always at the foot of the cross, looking unto Jesus. Alas! then, the tendency in us all is to be looking for evidences, signs, marks, experiences, graces, and I know not what. Having begun in the Spirit we are so foolish and so bewitched that we try to get perfect in the flesh. We know that at the first our only comfort came from simply depending upon the finished work of Jesus, and yet we are so mad that we try to get comfort from that poor flesh of ours, which has already been our encumbrance, and will be our plague till it dies. Now the moment that a Christian wanders away from his place--that is, from the simplicity of his faith in Jesus--the moment he departs from that standing upon the solid rock of what Christ did and what Christ is, and what Christ has promised, that moment he is like a bird that wanders from her nest. The bird away from her nest has no comfort; the instincts of nature make her feel during her incubation that the nest is her proper place. And when the Christian gets away from the cross, the newborn instincts within him make him feel that he is out of his proper position. The cross is the true rest of a Christian. We are like Noah's dove, there is no rest for the sole of our feet except in the ark; we may search the world around and fly over the great waste of waters, but there never shall be found rest for us anywhere but at the cross. I confess I sometimes get into that sorry state of feeling, rather as a Christian professor or a minister than as a sinner saved by grace; but I find that I have to come back again to that same place and to sing the old ditty over again:-

"Nothing in my hands I bring;

 

Simply to thy cross I cling;

 

Naked, come to thee for dress;

 

Helpless, look to thee for grace."

There is no living comfortably, there is no living with the peace and joy of the Holy Spirit in the heart, if we at once wander from the simplicity of our confidence in Christ.

Further: there are many believers who also wander out of their place. What now is a believer's place? A believer's place is on the bosom of his Lord, or at the right hand of his Master, or sitting at his feet with Mary. Now some of us have had times in which we did come very near to the Lord Jesus Christ. Ah! some of you never woke in the morning without thinking of him, and all day long a sense of his presence was in your heart. How you grudged the world the hours you had to give to business; and when you locked up your heart at night you always gave Jesus Christ the key. Oh! how sweet ordinances were to you then because you could see Christ through them, as through windows of agates and gates of carbuncles! So delightful were prayer-meetings and similar gatherings because you saw Jesus there and talked with him! But what about your present state? Perhaps my dear friend you have wandered from your place; you are not living near to Christ as you used to do. Hence ordinances have but very little comfort in them; they are dull and tedious; and services which were once as marrow and fatness to you have now become as dry bones. Your closet, too, is much neglected; your Bible is not studied as it was. You have lost your first love, and I appeal to you, have you not also lost your first comfort? Are you not like a bird that has wandered from her nest? Believe me there is no solid joy, no seraphic rapture, no hallowed peace this side of heaven, except by living close under the shadow of the cross and nestling in the wounds of Jesus. Oh! that we should be so foolish! The bird doth not forget her nest but we do forget our Lord. We have need to say with the Psalmist, "Return unto thy rest, O my soul, for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee!" We have need to cry tonight: -