Spurgeon: Sermons on Proverbs (95 page)

God can use inferior persons for grand purposes. He has often done so. Go into his armoury and see how he has worked by flies and lice, by worms and caterpillars, by frogs and serpents. His greatest victories were won by a hammer and a tent-pin, by an ox-goad, by the jawbone of an ass, by a sling and a stone, and such like. His greatest prophets at the first tried to excuse themselves on the ground of unfitness. In the armoury of the Lord you will find few swords with golden scabbards, but you will find many unlikely weapons. God uses what no one else would look upon. The Lord can get much glory out of you my poor desponding friend; wherefore, bestir yourself. Though you think yourself quite unworthy, go on in consecration of heart to yield yourself wholly to God and he will not pass you by.

Bethink you yet again, the Lord does not expect of you more than you can do: it is accepted if it be according to what a man hath, and not according to what he hath not. In building a house there must be the common bricks for the wall as well as the carved stone for the corner. Are you so ambitious that nothing but the chief place will suit you? Fie upon you! Let no man despise anything that may come in to complete the building of the house that God inhabits.

Suppose you feel that you are more brutish than any man, shall I give you a little advice? If you can do but little, make the best of yourself by intensity. In the natural world that creature is most to be feared which is the most energetic, rather than that which is greatest. You shall find your life more in danger from the slender viper than from the huge ox. That which is the fullest of fire and energy will achieve the most. A small musket-ball in full career will do more execution than a great cannon-ball which lies still. Make the best of yourself also by perseverance. If you are a little axe and can give only a small chip at a time, keep on striking, and even the oak will yield to your blows. If you are only a drop, remember that constant dripping wears away stones. Keep on at holy service, and do so all the more because you do so little at any one time. Many littles will make much. Pence given every day will make pounds.

Make up by spiritual force what you lack in natural ability. If you lack talent, get all the more grace and you will be no loser. If you love God more, even though you know less of science, you will live a successful, because a holy, life. If you have a greater love for the souls of your hearers than the man who has ten talents, you may be ten times more a soul-winner than he. It is spiritual power, not mental power, which avails in conversion.

Agur, a little further on in his one chapter, cheers up the humbler sort of people by his talk about little things. In his twenty-fourth verse he says:--"There be four things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise: the ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer." You that cannot do very much, take care never to lose an opportunity. Make hay while the sun shines: seize the seasons and turn them to account. If you were a great man and could at one speech sway the minds of thousands, even then you ought not to be idle; but if you can only deal with one at a time, do not let that one escape you. Copy the bees and the ants and use the summer hours right diligently.

Next, read verse twenty-six. You are feeble; but remember, "The conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks." Keep to the rock, keep to eternal verities, keep to the things which cannot be moved. Never run away from the gospel. There is not much in you, but there is a great deal in Christ: always keep to him. You cannot say much, but let all you do say savor of Christ. Never quit the gospel or you leave the rock of your shelter. Keep to the rocks and you will do much good, and run no risk.

Next, if you are very little you should like the locusts associate with others, and go forth in an orderly way to work. Make yourself useful by dropping into rank, and in holy companionship doing your part in connection with the rest. One locust is a thing to be laughed at but when they go forth in bands they make nations tremble. One believer may accomplish little; but in the ranks of the Sunday-school the many can do wonders.

Suppose you are as little thought of as a spider, yet copy the spider in the two things which Agur mentions. Take hold with your hands. Always be taking hold upon the promise of the great King by the hand of faith. Let your faith come out of your own heart as the spider spins her web out of her own bowels. Be always hanging on to one promise or another, and constantly add to your holding. Have also a holy courage like the spider who is in king's palaces. She is not satisfied with being hidden away in a barn or a cottage; she pays a visit to Solomon and makes her abode in his painted halls. If you can go anywhere for Christ, go and spin your web of gospel from your inmost soul. Make up your mind that whatever company you are in, you will begin to spin about Christ, and spin a web in which to catch a soul for your Lord. In this way, though you fear you are more foolish than any man, God will make as much use of you as if you were the wisest of men. I pray thee, O feeble one, render to thy Lord such service as thou canst.

IV. Lastly: a sense of inferiority must not hinder our faith in the Lord. Suppose you have to say this morning, very groaningly, "I am more brutish than any man, I have not the understanding of a man." What then? Are you going to fret and worry about it? Will you therefore refuse to believe in your God? I do not see, if it be true to the fullest extent, that there is any reasonable cause for being cast down in reference to the Lord your God. Would you expect to be saved because you were not brutish? Would you look for heaven because you had a fine understanding and could place a third of the letters of the alphabet at the end of your name? If everybody said "What a highly-cultured man this is!" do you think heaven's gate would open any the more readily to you? You are on the wrong tack, my friend, if you think so. Capacities and attainments put plumes into the hat but they do not protect the head from error.

Answer me this. Are not the little things in creation full of joy? Do not the dewdrops sparkle on the hedges? When the summer comes walk down your garden and see the thousands of gnats. What are they doing? They are dancing up and down in the sunbeams. The very midges are full of delight. Will you be shamed by a gnat or a midge? No! take you to dancing too; but let it be like that of David when he danced before the ark of God. Rejoice in the Lord always. God gives small creatures great delight. Why should not you be as happy, after your measure, as the angels are? Little stars twinkle for very brightness. If you need
humbler examples, look at the little birds and hear how they sing. Great birds seldom have the gift of song. You may listen long before you will hear an ostrich or an emu singing. In our own farmyards neither the turkey nor the peacock charm us with their melody. Little birds awake the sun with their harmonies and make the morning sacred with their psalmody. Tell me, you that feel as if you were less than the least, is there any reason why you should not rejoice in the Lord?

Who had most joy out of the Lord Jesus when he was here? Or rather, who expressed their delight most exultingly? It was not great Peter, nor active James, nor holy John, but it was the children in the temple. "Children of Jerusalem

They shouted "Hosanna!" "Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings he hath perfected praise," if nothing else. The little ones can praise for they are happy in the sweet simplicity of their faith and in the warmth of their hearts. My dear friend, do the same. Delight thyself also in the Lord. Be glad in the Lord, and express your gladness.

"Ah, sir! I am foolish and ignorant." Yes, but did you notice in the seventy-third Psalm, which we read just now, that I called your attention to the singular language used by Asaph? He says, "So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee. Nevertheless I am continually with thee: thou hast holden me by my hand." God takes care of the foolish and guards the feeble, wherefore, let them rest in his love, and be glad in his care.

Remember that if by reason of our inferiority you and I have to take a back seat, the back seats are still in the house. Our littleness does not alter God's promise. It is the same promise to the small as to the great; to the weak as to the strong. Our deficiency does not alter our God. He is as full of grace and truth as ever. He does not increase because we are enlarged, neither is he diminished because we have declined. My God, as a babe in grace, is the same God as those rejoice in who have attained to fullness of stature in Christ Jesus. What a blessed God we have! Only to think of him is hope; to know him is fruition. "Yea, mine own God is he," said David; and he could never have uttered a grander word. "This God is our God for ever and ever," is a sentence which might as fairly have been spoken in heaven as upon this lower earth. It has a glory tone about it. Come ye little ones, ye backward ones, ye foolish ones, dwell upon the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, with your hearts' delight. The triune God is yours, your Father, your Redeemer, your Comforter: a triple blessing is thus secured to you; let your triple nature of body, soul, and spirit rejoice therein.

This makes no difference to the covenant of grace. Babes in their long-clothes, if they are heirs, have quite as sure a right to their inheritance as have those who are of full age. One is as legally protected as one-and-twenty. The children cannot yet take full possession by reason of their tender years; but the law defies a rogue to rob even an infant heir of his lawful patrimony. Enjoy you, therefore, O you little ones, the infinite wealth of the covenant, and doubt not your right and title in Christ Jesus!
However little you may be this makes no difference to God's love to you. Ask yourselves, do you love that full-grown son of yours of twenty-five so much that you have the less love left for your chubby little boy at home of two or three? Bless his little heart! when he climbs your knee to-day and asks whether you have a kiss for him, will you answer "No Johnny, I cannot love you, for you are so little that I give all my love to your older brother, because he knows so much more than you do and can be so useful to me"? Oh no; you love the last one perhaps better than any of them: certainly not less. They say that if there be a child in the family who is a little weak, the mother always loves it most. It is so with our God; he is most tender and most gracious to the weakest and least known. Our Shepherd carrieth the lambs in his bosom and doth gently lead those that are with young: wherefore be not cast down because of your conscious inferiority, but admire the condescending grace of God.

If you feel that you are more brutish than anybody else, yet believe in God up to the hilt; believe in him and trust him with all your heart, and then feel all the more gratitude that he should have loved such a worthless one as you are. Feel all the more content with that free, rich, sovereign grace which has chosen you and ordained you to eternal life. Glorify God-by your very weakness. Glory in your infirmity, because the power of Christ doth rest upon you. Be all the more trustful in God since you have nothing in yourself to rely upon. Say, "The great ones may run alone, but I am a babe, and I must be carried in my Father's arms; therefore I will have the greater faith to match my greater need."

Our deep sense of folly and weakness should also keep us humble before the Lord. Where is room for boasting? What have we to glory in? We owe all to mercy, and to mercy shall be all the praise!

Lastly, be more tender to others who like yourself are feeble. It is wonderful how gracious little ones care for other little ones, sympathize with them, pray for them, and comfort them. I believe that the saying is strictly true, that "the poor help the poor"; and I know it is so among the spiritually poor. High and mighty ones cannot help downcast saints: only those who have been afflicted can console the afflicted. In the East, among the Bedouins, in a shepherd's family, the little children, as soon as they can walk, learn to keep the lambs. You see, the little boy who can only go slowly can lead the little lambs admirably, for he and they go well together. The big father would have taken long strides and so have tired the little lambs; but his little son can only go at a slow pace, and that pace suits the lambs. The weak lambs are pleased with their little shepherd who is a lamb like themselves: he is fond of the lambs, and the lambs feel at home with him. So dear friends, if the Lord permits you to be among the little ones, look after the little ones; and whereas some would have to bend their backs too much to look after the lowly, you are on their level and will naturally care for their state. Thus will you find your sphere of usefulness, and in it you will earn to yourselves a good degree. Though like Agur you feel more brutish than any man, you will so live that nobody would have thought so if you had not told them; and few will believe it when you do tell them. To God alone be glory. Amen.

A Sermon (No. 3236) published on Thursday, February 9th, 1911 delivered by C.H. Spurgeon at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington. on Lord's Day Evening, September 20th, 1863.

"Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more."--Proverbs 31:6, 7.

These somewhat singular sentences were spoken by the mother of Lemuel to her son, who was probably Solomon. She had already said to him, "It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine; nor for princes strong drink: lest they drink and forget the law, and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted." But such a king as Solomon was must have had an abundant store of wine of all kinds, so his mother urged him to give it to the sick and the sad and the poor who needed it more then he did. The Jews were in the habit of giving a cup of strong drink, usually with some potent drug in it, to stupefy those who were about to be executed. Perhaps that is the meaning of the words, "Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish." We know too how persons who have been very weak and ill, on the very borders of the grave, have often been medicinally relieved by wine given to them which they could not possibly purchase for themselves. I believe this is the literal meaning of the text, and that if any man should be wicked enough to draw from it the inference that he would be able to forget his misery and poverty by drinking, he would soon find himself woefully mistaken; for if he had one misery before he would have ten miseries afterwards; and if he was previously poor he would be in still greater poverty afterwards. Those who fly to the bottle for consolation might as soon fly to hell to find a heaven; and instead of helping them to forget their poverty, drunkenness would only sink them still more deeply in the mire.