Song of Solomon 1
SpurgeonSong of Solomon 1:1-17
We will this evening read in the one Book of the Bible which is wholly given up to fellowship; I allude to the Book of Canticles. This Book stands like the tree of life in the midst of the garden, and no man shall ever be able to pluck its fruit, and eat thereof, until first he has been brought by Christ past the sword of the cherubim, and led to rejoice in the love which hath delivered him from death. The Song of Solomon is only to be comprehended by the men whose standing is within the vail. The outer-court worshippers, and even those who only enter the court of the priests, think the Book a very strange one; but they who some very near to Christ can often see in this Song of Solomon the only expression which their love to their Lord desires.Son 1:1-2. The song of songs, which is Solomon’s. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.The Person here alluded to is not named; this omission is very common and usual to all-absorbing love.
The spouse is thinking so much of Christ Jesus her Lord that it is not necessary for her to name him; she cannot make a mistake, and she is so oblivious of all besides, that she does not think of them, nor of those who would ask, “Who is this of whom you speak?” The communion is so close between herself and her Lord that his name is left out: “Let him kiss me.” By the kiss is to be understood that strange and blessed manifestation of love which Christ gives from himself to his children. Inasmuch as the word “kisses” is in the plural, the spouse asks that she may have the favor multiplied; and inasmuch as she mentions the “mouth” of her Bridegroom, it is because she wishes to receive the kisses fresh and warm from his sacred person. “For thy love is better than wine.” It is better in itself, for it is more costly.
Did it not flow out in streams of blood from a better winepress than earth’s best wine hath ever known? It is better, too, in its effects; more exhilarating, more strengthening, and it leaves no ill results.Son 1:3. Because of the savour of thy good ointments thy name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love thee.The spouse surveys all the attributes of Christ, and she compares them to separate and precious ointments. Christ is anointed as Prophet, Priest and King, and in each of these anointings he is a source of sweetness and fragrance to his people. But as if jealous of herself for having talked of the “ointments” when she should have spoken of him, she seems to say, “Thy very name is as an alabaster box when it is opened, and the odour of the precious spikenard fills the room.” “Jesus, the very thought of thee With sweetness fills my breast.” “Thy name is as ointment poured forth,” and the spouse addeth, as a note of commendation, “therefore do the virgins love thee.”Son 1:4. Draw me, we will run after thee:She feels, perhaps, as you do now, beloved brethren, heavy of heart; she cannot fly, nor go to reach her Lord; but her heart longs after him, so she cries, “Draw me, we will run after thee.” While she prays the prayer others feel it suitable to them also, so they join with her.
When Christ draws us, we do not walk, but “run” after him; there is no heavy going then. When Christ draws us, how swiftly do we fly, as the dove to the dove-cote, when Jesus’ grace enticeth us.
Running soon brings the spouse to her Lord; for notice the next clause: —Son 1:4. The king hath brought me into his chambers:It is done: “The King hath brought me into his chambers.” Come you to him in prayer, and mayhap, while you are yet speaking, he will hear; while you are musing, the fire shall burn, and you shall be able to say, “Yes, he has brought me near to himself, to the retired chamber where I may be alone with him, to the chamber of riches and delights, where I may feast with him.”Son 1:4. We will be glad and rejoice in thee,This is the sure result of getting into the inner chamber with Christ.Son 1:4. We will remember thy love more than wine: the upright love thee.Not only the just in heart, those pure and lowly ones who, whithersoever the Lamb doth lead, from his footsteps ne’er depart, but the upright, those who love moral excellence and virtue, they must love Christ. Now the singer’s note changeth: —Son 1:5. I am black,Ah, my soul, how true is that of thee! “I am black,” —Son 1:5.
But comely,Oh, glorious faith, that can, through the blackness, still see the comeliness! We are comely when covered with the righteousness of Christ, though black in ourselves. “I am black, but comely,” —Son 1:5.
O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar,Smoke-dried, foul, filthy, poverty-stricken.Son 1:5. As the curtains of Solomon.Bedecked with embroidery made with gold and silver threads, and fit for a king’s tent, so strangely mixed is the nature of the believer: “black but comely,” … “as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon.”Son 1:6. Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me:Perhaps you are afraid, beloved, that the Master should look at you, for you feel yourself so unworthy.Son 1:6. My mother’s children were angry with me;You have been persecuted until your spirit is broken.Son 1:6. They made me the keeper of the vineyards;Perhaps you have been put to some ignoble work; you have toiled under the whip of the law; but you have a worse sorrow even than this, for you have to add: —Son 1:6. But mine own vineyard have I not kept.You are conscious that you have restrained prayer, that you have neglected searching the Word, that you have not lived as near to God as you ought to have done; and all this seems to make you feel as if you could not come into close communion with Christ.
Come, my brother, my sister, shake off your unbelief, may the Master shake it off from you! Then once again you can change the note, as the spouse does here: —Son 1:7.
Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon: for why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions?There are other shepherds, though they are false ones, and these pretend to be companions of Christ; but why should we turn aside to them? And yet we shall, O our Beloved One, unless thou dost tell us where to follow thee, and how to abide close by thy side, or dost tell us where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon! Here comes the answer: —Son 1:8. If thou know not, O thou fairest among women,-Just note that; she said that she was black, but Christ says that she is the fairest among women; in fact, there is a passage in the Song where he twice over calls her fair; as Erskine puts it, — “Lo! thou art fair, lo! thou art fair, Twice fair art thou, I say; My grace, my righteousness becomes Thy doubly-bright array.” O ye faithful ones, what joy is contained in this encomium which your Lord gives to you!” If thou know not, O thou fairest among women, —Son 1:8. Go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed thy kids beside the shepherds’ tents.There are two ways of finding Christ; first, follow after true believers; most of you know some experienced Christians; follow their footsteps, and you shall so find their God. Or else, go to the shepherds’ tents; wait on the ministry of the Word; the Lord is often pleased to manifest himself to his people when they are willing to hear what messages he sends through his ambassadors.Son 1:9. I have compared thee, O my love, to a company of horses in Pharaoh’s chariots.True believers are as strong, as noble, as beautiful as the horses in Pharaoh’s chariot, which were renowned throughout all the world. Let us be like those horses, let us all pull together, let us draw the great chariot of our King behind us, let us be content to wear his harness, that we may be partakers of his splendid triumph.Son 1:10. Thy cheeks are comely with rows of jewels, thy neck with chains of gold.Christ here praises his Church.
Orientals were in the habit of wearing jewels in such abundance that their cheeks were covered with them, and then they multiplied the chains of gold upon their necks; and the graces which Christ gives to his people, and especially the various parts of his own finished work, become to them like rows of jewels and chains of gold.Son 1:11. We will make thee borders of gold with studs of silver.As if Father, Son, and Holy Ghost would all work together to make the believer perfectly beautiful.Son 1:12-13.
While the king sitteth at his table, my spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof. A bundle of myrrh is my wellbeloved unto me;Not a sprig, mark you, but a bundle of myrrh.Son 1:13. He shall lie all night betwixt my breasts.Christ, as a bundle of myrrh, shall always be near our hearts, so that every life-pulse shall come from him.Son 1:14. My beloved is unto me as a cluster of camphire in the vineyards of Engedi.He is not, I say again, one sprig or spray of camphire, but a cluster of it. The spouse, you see, multiplies figures to describe her Bridegroom, and even when she has done so, she cannot reach the height of his glory. “Nor earth, nor seas, nor sun, nor stars, Nor heaven, his full resemblance bears; His beauties we can never trace, Till we behold him face to face.” Son 1:15. Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves’ eyes.So Christ speaks of his Church, she has the soft, mild, tender eyes of a dove. Besides, she has the discerning eye by which the dove can distinguish between carrion and fit food; and then she has a clear eye like that of the dove. You know that the dove, or pigeon, when it is taken far away from home, and wants to reach its cote, flies round and round till it gets up high, and then it looks for miles, perhaps for hundreds of miles, till it tracks with unerring eye its own resting-place, or some familiar landmark, and then, with cutting wing, it flies through the ether till it reaches its home. So, every believer should have doves’ eyes, — eyes that can see from earth to heaven, and see Christ in his glory, even when his cause is disowned by men.Son 1:16-17. Behold, thou art fair, my beloved, yea, pleasant: also our bed is green.
The beams of our house are cedar, and our rafters of fir. We have the word “rafters” here, but it should be “galleries.” The “bed” expresses the near fellowship which Christ has with his people. The “house” is a larger expression, and perhaps denotes the whole Church; and the “galleries” signify the ordinances of grace. You notice that these are made of unrotting wood, the one of cedar and the other of fir; and truly, dear friends, in closing our reading, we can say to our Lord, — “No beams of cedar or of fir Can with thy courts on earth compare; And here we wait, until thy love Raise us to nobler seats above.”
Two Sermons: Self-Humbling and Self-Searching and The Unkept Vineyard; Or, Personal Work Neglected Self-Humbling and Self-Searching by C. H. (1834-1892) “Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me: my mother’s children were angry with me, they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept."— Son 1:6 . Whence do I draw my text but from the very fountain of love? And to whom shall I address my discourse but to the friends of the bridegroom? Ye must have warm hearts, quick sensibilities, lively emotions to interpret the sayings and sympathize the tender notes of this most sacred song.
I suppose that the history of the statues in St. Paul’s Cathedral, from year to year, would not be remarkably interesting. They are placed upon their pedestals; they stand there quietly; and unless some terrible convulsion should occur, probably that will be the whole of their history for many years to come, as it has been for many years past. During the time in which any one of those statues has stood there, however, the history of any one human person has been checkered with all sorts of incidents, happy and sorrowful. Aches and pains, joys and rejoicings’ depressions and exultations, have alternated in the living; but in the cold marble there has been no such change.
Many of you in this house know little of what are the experiences of God’s people. If you hear of their anxieties and encouragements, their temptations and deliverances, their inward conflicts and spiritual triumphs, their gloomy depressions and cheerful exultations—all those things seem to you as an idle tale. The living, the living, shall know the secret; but unto the mere professor this thing is not revealed.
My subject, which will be mainly addressed to God’s working people—to such as are really serving him—will appear to have very little bearing upon any here present who do not understand the spiritual life, and they will probably think that the evening to them is wasted. Just this word on the outset, however, I would drop in your ears. If you do not know anything of spiritual life, what will you do in the end of your natural life? If there be no work of God’s Spirit upon your soul, and you are a stranger to the living experience of God’s children, what will be your portion for ever? It must be divided to you with the unbelievers. Are you prepared to receive it?
Are you willing that this should be your eternal destiny? Are you not, rather, alarmed? Are you not made anxious and desirous if by any means you may pass into that better, truer, state of life? Considering its boundless interests, notwithstanding all the present struggles and sorrows it may entail on you, do you not wish to know and prove what spiritual life means? I pray God you may. Let me remind you that the gospel preached to you is still available for your quickening; and whosoever believeth in Christ Jesus is born of God, and is possessor of that spiritual life.
Now, in conducting the people of God to a special survey of our text, “Look not upon me, because I am black,” our first remark shall be this: the fairest Christians are the most shamefaced with regard to themselves. The person who says, “Look not upon me, because I am black,” is described by some one else in the eighth verse as the “fairest among women.” Others, who thought her the fairest of the fair, spoke no less than the truth when they affirmed it; but in her own esteem she felt herself to be so little fair, and so much uncomely, that she besought them not even to look upon her. Why is it that the best Christians depreciate themselves the most?
Is it not because they are most accustomed to look within? They keep their books in a better condition than those unsafe tradesmen, the counterpart of mere professors, who think themselves “rich and increased in goods,” when they are on the very verge of bankruptcy.
The Christian in his right state tests himself to see whether he be in the faith. He values too much his own soul to go on blindly. He knows that Heedless and Toobold are always bad pilots, so he sets Caution and Self-examination at the helm. He cries to God, “Search me, and know my heart.” He is accustomed to examine his actions and his motives—to pass his words and his thoughts in review. He does not live the life of one who goes recklessly on; but he stops and considers his ways; and looks well to the state of everything within him “to have always a conscience void of offense toward God and toward men.” Solomon says, “The wise man looks to the state of his flocks and his herds;” and it is no marvel if any one suffer loss who neglects the counsel. But he also says, “Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life;” and it is quite certain that he who fails in this exercise is liable to every kind of moral disorder.
In his anxiety to be pure from evil, the godly man will be eager to notice and quick to detect the least particle of defilement; and for this reason he discovers more of his blackness than any other man is likely to see. He is no blacker, but he looks more narrowly, and therefore he sees more distinctly the spots on his own character.
The genuine Christian, also, tries himself by a higher standard.
The professor, if he be as good as another professor, is well content. He estimates himself by a comparison with his neighbors. He has no standard but that of ordinary commonplace Christianity. Par otherwise is it with the believer who walks near to God; he asks himself “What manner of persons ought we to be, in all holy conversation and godliness?” He knows the law to be spiritual, and therefore he judges many things to be sinful which others wink at; and he counts some things to be important duties which others regard as trifles. The genuine Christian sets up no lower standard than perfection. He does not judge himself by others, but by the exact measure of the divine requirements, by the law of God, and especially by the example of his Lord and Master; and when he thus sets the brightness of the Savior’s character side by side with his own, then it is that he cries out, “Look not upon me, for I am black.” The mere professor never does this: he neither scrutinises himself nor observes his Master with close heed and strained attention, desiring to ascertain the truth; but he flatters himself in his own eyes, and goes on presumptuously.
Not so the genuine Christian; he hides his face, sighs in secret, and cries before God, because he is not what he wants to be; not what his Lord was; not fully conformed to Christ in all things; and just because these short-comings grieve and vex his righteous soul, he cries, “Look not upon me, for I am black.” All the while he may be of the highest type of Christian, yet he is not so in his own esteem. He may be a star to others, but he is a blot, as he thinks, to himself.
In God’s esteem he is “accepted in the Beloved,” but in his own esteem he seems to himself to be full of all manner of evil, and he cries out against it before his Lord.
Another reason why the fairest Christ are generally those that think themselves the blackest, is that they have more light. A person may seem to be very fair in the dark, very fair in the twilight; but when the light gets strong, and the eye is strengthened to perceive, then it is that spots that were not noticed before are soon discovered. You have, perhaps, a handkerchief that has looked to you extremely white; so it has been in comparison with other linen: but one day, when there has been a fall of snow, you have laid your handkerchief side by side with the snow, and you have seen that it was very far from the whiteness which you imagined. When the light of God comes into the soul, and we see what purity really is, what holiness really is, then it is the contrast strikes us. Though we might have thought we were somewhat clean before, when we see God in his light we see light, and we abhor ourselves in dust and ashes. Our defects so appall our own heart, that we marvel they do not exhaust his patience.
The better Christ a man is, the more abashed he always feels; because to him sin is so exceedingly hateful, that what sin he sees in himself he loathes himself for far more than others do. The ungodly man would condone very great sin in himself; though he might know it to be there; it would not disturb him; but the Christian being another sort, having a love for holiness and a hatred for sin, cannot bear to see the smallest speck of sin upon himself: He knows what it is. There are persons living before the public eye, and jealous of popularity, who appear quite indifferent to the good opinion of the sovereign in whose kingdom they dwell there are other persons favourites at court, who would lie awake at night tossed to and fro in fear if they thought that something had been reported to the sovereign’s ear that was disloyal.
A man who fears not God, will break all his laws with an easy conscience, but one who is the favorite of heaven, who has been indulged to sit at royal banquets, who knows the eternal love of God to him, cannot bear that there should be any evil way in him that might grieve the Spirit and bring dishonor to the name of Christ. A very little sin, as the world calls it, is a very great sin to a truly awakened Christian. I will ask you now, dear hearers (most of on are members of this or of other churches), do you know what it is to fret because you have spoken an unadvised word? Do you know what it is to smite upon your breast, because you were angry?—justly provoked, perhaps, but still, being angry, you spoke unadvisedly. Have you ever gone to a sleepless couch, because in business you have let fall a word, or have done an action which, upon mature deliberation, you could not justify? Does the tear never come from your eye because you are not like your Lord, and have failed where you hoped to succeed?
I would give little for your godliness, if you know nothing of this. Repentance is as much a mark of a Christian as faith itself.
Do not think we have done with repenting when we come to Christ and receive the remission of our sins by the blood that did once atone. No; we shall repent as long as we sin, and as long as we need the precious blood for cleansing. While there is sin, or a proneness to any kind of sin, lurking in us, the grace of God will make us loathe the sin and humble ourselves before the Most High on account of it. Now, I think our text seems to say just this: there were some that admired the church. They said she was fair. She seemed to say, “Don’t say it; you don’t know what I am, or you would not praise me.” Oh, there is nothing that brings a blush to a genuine Christian’s face like praising him; for he feels—“Praise such a heap of dirt as I am? Give any credit to such a worthless worm as I am? No; do not cast admiring glances at me! Do not say, ‘That man has many virtues and many excellences!’ ‘Look not upon me, for I am black.’” Are there not some who will imitate any Christian—and be very right in so doing—any Christian who is eminently godly and holy?
There will be many who will follow in his footsteps. I think I see such a man turn round to his followers, and say: “Do not look at me; do not copy me. I am black. Copy a better model even Jesus. If I follow in his footsteps, follow me; but inasmuch as I have gone astray like a lost sheep, follow the shepherd; do not follow my example.” Every Christian, in proportion as he lives near to God, will feel this self-abasement, this lowliness of heart; and if others talk of admiring or of imitating him, he will say, “Look not upon me, for I am black.” And as he thus, in deep humility, begs that he be not exalted, he will often desire others that they would not despise him. It will come into his mind, “Such-and-such a man of God is a Christian indeed; as he sees my weakness, he will contemn me.
Such-and-such a disciple of Christ is strong; he will never be able to bear with my weakness. Such-and-such a Christian woman does, indeed, adorn the doctrine of God her Savior; but as for me, alas!
I am not what I ought to be, nor what I would be. Christ of God, do not look upon me with scorn. I will not say that you have motes in your own eyes. I have a beam in mine. Look not upon me too severely. Judge me not harshly. If you do look at me, look to Christ for me, and pray that I may be helped; ‘for I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me.’” Still I would have you beware of affecting aught that you do not feel. Humility itself may be counterfeited with much ostentation.
Wherever there is anything like cant, as it is practiced by some people who depreciate themselves but do not mean it, it is loathsome to the last degree. I recollect a very proud man, certainly twice as proud as he was high, who used to pray for himself as “God’s poor dust.” There was nothing, I am sure, about his conduct and conversation that entitled him to use any such expression. I have heard of a monk who said he was full of sin—he was as bad as Judas; and when somebody said, “That is true,” he turned round, and said, “What did I ever do that you should say so?” The effrontery of the arrogant is not more odious than the servility of the sycophant. There is a great deal of self-abnegation which is not genuine; it is the offspring of self-conceit, and not of self-knowledge. Much that we say of ourselves would mightily offend our vainglory if anybody else said the same of us. Oh, let us beware of mock humility! At the same time, the more of the genuine article we have the better, and the more truthfully we can cry out to God’s people, “Look not upon me, because I am black,” the more clear will it be that we are, after all, amongst the fairest.
But I pass on. The most diligent Christian—let this stand for the second observation— the most diligent Christian will be the man most afraid of the evils connected with his work. “Evils connected with his work!” says one. “Does work for God have evils contingent upon it?” Yes; but for every evil connected with the work of God, there are ten evils connected with idleness.
Nay, all you professors who are doing, nothing, are wearing yourselves out faster by rust than you could have done by honest wear. But, you see, in the case of our text, there was evil connected with work. She had been made a keeper of the vineyards, and having to trim the vines, the sun had shone upon her; and she says, “Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me.” The blackness that she confessed was a blackness occasioned by her having to bear the burden and heat of the day.
And now I speak to such as live in active service, doing the work of God. Dear brethren, there are certain evils connected with our lifework coming of the sun that looks upon us, which we should confess before our heavenly Father. I speak now only to the workers. I have known some whom the sun has looked upon in this respect; their zeal has grown cold through non-success. You went out, first of all, as a Christian, full of fire and life. You intended to push the church before you, and drag the world after you.
Peradventure you thought that you were going to work a Reformation almost as great as that of Luther. Well, much of that was of the flesh, though beneath the surface there was an earnest zeal for God which was eating you up. But you have been mixed up with Christians for some years of a very cool sort. Use the thermometer to-night. Has not the spiritual temperature gone down in your own soul? Perhaps you have not seen many conversions under your ministry? or in the class which you conduct you have not seen many children brought to Jesus?
Do you feel you are getting cool? Then wrap your face in your mantle to-night! and say: “Look not upon me, for in losing my zeal I am black, for the sun hath looked upon me.” Perhaps it has affected you in another way, for the sun does not bring freckles out on all faces in the same place.
Perhaps it is your temper that is grown sour? When you joined the church you felt all love, and you expected, as you had a right to do, that everybody would reciprocate the same feeling; it may be that since then you have had to do battle against contentions. You have been in a part of the church where there has been a strife, not altogether for the faith once delivered to the saints, but something of a party feeling was mixed with it, and you have had to take some share in it. And perhaps you have gradually acquired a carping, critical habit, so that where you used to enjoy the word, you are now all for judging the preacher. You are not so much a feeder upon the word, as a mere taster of the dishes, to see if you cannot find some fault with their flavour. Wrap your face again, I beseech you, in your mantle.
Again bow before God, and say: “Look not upon me, because I am black; the sun hath looked upon me. In my service for God I have been impaired.” Perhaps, dear friend, you have suffered in another way!
I sometimes suffer in this respect very materially. The Christian’s walk ought to be calm, peaceful, quiet, unruffled. Leaving everything with the Lord, and waiting his will, our peace should be like a river. But you know that, when there is much to be done in God’s service, there is a very strong temptation to want to push this and that thing forward with undue haste. Or if it does not move quickly at the rate you would wish, there is a temptation to be sad, careful, and anxious; to be, in fact, like Martha, cumbered with much service. When you get into that condition it is an injury to yourself and really prejudicial to your own work; for they serve Christ best who commune with him most, and broken fellowship means broken strength.
Yet this is often our trouble; our energies are exhausted by worry more than by work. Part of our duty is neglected through unexpected cares that have distracted our thoughts.
Pardon me, if I transfer the thing to myself in a figure. Say that this Tabernacle wants all my vigilance concentrated upon its welfare. Then there is another matter that wants instant attention at the same time. Here is a soul seeking Christ; here is another backsliding; here is a brother falling to ears with a brother. Innumerable things crowd upon one’s view and clamor for immediate investigation till one gets disturbed and troubled. “Look not upon me, because I am black; because the sun hath looked upon me. The work I have engaged in for thee hath brought me into the sun, and burnt my face.” It ought to be bright and fair with fellowship; it is soiled and begrimed with service.
Sometimes this evil of sun-burning will come in the shape of joy taken away from the heart by weariness. I do not think, dear brethren, any of us are weary of God’s work. If so, we never were called to it.
But we may get weary in it. You recollect, some of you here—I speak to such as often preach the gospel—how happy you were when first you were permitted to open your mouth for Christ! Oh, what a joy it was! What a pleasure! How you threw your whole soul into it! There was no sleepiness and dulness in your sermon then. But now, year after year, year after year, your brain gets weary, and though the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak; the joy you once had in the service was your strength, and it has some what gone from you. The toil is more irksome when the spirits are less buoyant.
Well, I would advise you to confess this before God, and ask for a medicine to heal you. You had need get your joy back, but first you must acknowledge that you have lost it. Say, “I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me.”
On the other hand, it is a bad result of a good work when our humility is injured thereby. Place a Christian man in a position where he has to do much for Christ, and is much thought of and set by: let him have great success: and the tendency will be for him to compliment himself as though he were some great one. You cannot reap great sheaves for the Master without this temptation coming over your soul. What a glorious workman you are, and what a great reward will your soul have for having done so well! It is the sun looking upon you; taking away the fairness of your humility, freckling and blackening your face with a pride that is obnoxious to God. This ought to be confessed at once and heartily repented of.
I do not think I shall attempt to go through the list of all the matters that might come out of Christian service.
It will suffice me to say, I am afraid that in many cases our motives get mixed. Pure and simple at first in our service, we may get at last to serve Christ only because it is our office to do so. Woe to the man that preaches only because he is a minister, and does not preach because he loves Christ! We may get also to be self-reliant. It is a great mercy for God’s ministers when they tremble on going into the pulpit, even though they have been accustomed to preach for twenty years. Martin Luther declares that he never feared the face of man; and all who knew him could bear witness that it was even so; yet he said he never went up the stairs of the pulpit at Wittenburg but he felt his knees knock together with fear lest he should not be faithful to God and his truth.
When we begin to rely upon ourselves’ and think we can do it, and our experience and our practice will suffice to bear us safely through the next discourse without help from on high, then the sun has looked upon us, and blackened our face indeed, and the time of our usefulness draws to a close. Come, Christian people, brethren and sisters, thankful though I am that I can address so large a number who are engaged in the Master’s work, I beseech you, let us go together to the footstool of the heavenly grace, confess there our blackness, and own that much of it has come upon us even while we were engaged in the service of God.
In the third place, the most watchful Christian is conscious of the danger of self-neglect. That is the next part of our text. “they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept.”
Solemnly, let me speak again to my brethren who are seeking to glorify Christ by their lives.
I met some time ago with a sermon by that famous divine, Mr. Henry Melvill, which consists all through of one solitary thought, and one only image well worked out. I will give you the pith of what took some eight pages to get through. He supposes a man to be a guide in Switzerland. It is his duty to conduct travelers in that country through the sublime passes, and to point out to them the glories of the scenery, and the beauties of the lakes, and streams, and glaciers, and hills. This man, as he continues in his office, almost inevitably gets to repeat his descriptions as a matter of course; and everybody knows how a guide at last comes to “talk book,” and just iterate words which do not awaken any corresponding feeling in his own mind.
Yet when he began, perhaps it was a sincere love of the sublime and the beautiful that led him to take up the avocation of a guide; and at first it really was to him a luxury to impart to others what he had felt amidst the glories of nature; but as, year after year, to hundreds of different parties, he had to repeat much the same descriptions, call attention to the same sublimities, and indicate the same beauties, it is almost impossible but that he should get to be at last a mere machine. Through the hardening tendency of custom, and the debasing influence of gain, his aptest descriptions and most exquisite eulogies come to be of no greater account than the mere language of a hireling.
This thought I will not work out in extenso as that famous preacher has done, but I give it to you as a cutting, which may germinate if planted in the garden of your heart. Every worker for Christ is deeply concerned in the application of this parable; because the peril of self complacency increases in precisely the same ratio as the zeal of proselytising. When counselling others, you think yourself wise. When warning others, you feel yourself safe. When judging others, you suppose yourself above suspicion. You began the work with a flush of ardor; it may be with a fever of enthusiasm; a sacred instinct prompted, a glowing passion moved you.
How will you continue it? Here is the danger—the fearful danger—lest you do it mechanically, fall into a monotony, continue in the same train, and use holy words to others with no corresponding feeling in your own soul.
May we not stir others up to devout emotions, and yet our own hearts fail to burn with the sacred fire? Oh, may it not be easy for one to stand as a signpost on the road to heaven, and never stir himself? Every preacher who judges himself aright knows that this is the risk he incurs; and I believe the same danger in a measure threatens Christ in every form of work in which they occupy themselves for Christ. Dear friends, beware of reading the Bible for other people. Get your own text—your own morsel of marrow and fatness—out of Scripture; and do not be satisfied to be sermon-making or lesson-making for your class in the Sunday-school. Feed on the word yourselves, or else your own vineyard will not be kept.
When you are on your knees in prayer, pray for others by all means; but, oh, let private prayer be kept up with a view to your own edification and your own growth in grace as well. Preach not the Savior’s blood, and yet be without the blood mark on yourselves.
Tell not of the fountain, and yet go unwashed. Do not point to heaven, and then turn your back to it and go down to hell. Fellow-workers, look to yourselves, lest after having preached to others ye yourselves should be cast away. Your neighbors certainly, but yourselves also; the children in your class certainly, your own children at home certainly, but look to yourselves also, oh, ye that are workers in God’s house, lest ye keep the vineyards of others and your own vineyards be not kept. It is very possible for a man to get to dislike the very religion which he feels bound still by force of custom to go on teaching to others. “Is that possible?” says one. Alas! that it is. Have you never heard of the flower-girl in the streets? What is her occupation!
I dare say some girls like her have passed by and seen her with a great basket full of violets, and said: “What a delightful occupation, to have that fragrant smell for ever near to one!” Yes, but there was one girl who sold them, and said she hated the smell of violets. She had got to loathe them, and to think that there was no smell in the world so offensive, because they were always under her nostrils all day, and taken home to her little scanty room at night, and having nothing but violets around her, she hated them altogether. And I do believe that there are persons without the grace of Christ in their hearts who keep on talking about grace, and mercy, and practicing prayer, and yet in their heart of hearts they hate the very fragrance of the name of Jesus, and need that there should come upon them an awakening out of their sleep of presumption and hypocrisy, to make them know that though they thought they were the friends of God, they were, after all, his enemies. They were mere keepers of other men’s vineyards, but their own vineyards had gone to ruin. Our last reflection is of the deepest importance. The most conscientious Christian will be the first to enquire for the antidote, and to use the cure.
What is the cure? The cure is found in the verse next to my text. “Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me. They made me the keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept.” What next? “Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon: for why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions?” See, then, you workers, if you want to keep up your freshness, and not to get blackened by the sun under which you labor, go to your Lord again—go and talk to him. Address him again by that dear name, “Thou whom my soul loveth.” Ask to have your first love rekindled; strive after the love of your espousals. There are men in married life who seem to have forgotten that they ever loved their wives; but there are others concerning whom the hymn is true— “And as year rolls after year, Each to other still more dear.” So there are some Christians who seem to forget that they ever loved the Savior; but I trow there are others in whom that love deepens and becomes more fervent as each year passes over their heads.
If any of you are at fault in this, do not give sleep to your eyelids to-night till you have renewed your espousal love. Thy Lord recollects it, if thou dost not, for he says: “I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown.” You did some wild things in those early days. You were a great deal more zealous than wise; but, though you look back upon that with censure, Christ regards it with delight. He wishes you were now as you were then. Perhaps to-day you are not quite cold to him. Do not flatter yourself on that account; for he has said, “I would thou wert cold or hot.” It is just lukewarmness that he loathes most of all, and he has threatened to spue the lukewarm out of his mouth.
Oh, to be always full of love to him! You will never get any hurt by working for him then; your work will do you good.
The sweat of labor will even make your face the fairer. The more you do for souls, the purer, and the holier, and the more Christ will you be, if you do it with him. Keep up the habit of sitting at his feet, like Mary, as well as serving him with Martha. You can keep the two together; they will balance each other, and you shall not be barren or unfruitful, neither shall you fall into the blackness which the sun is apt to breed. O for more nearness to Christ, more love to Christ, and closer communion with him! Did you notice what the spouse said: “Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest?” I suppose her object was to go and feed with him.
Look to the feeding of your own soul, Christian. When a man says, “I have a hard day’s work to do, I shall have no time to eat,” you know full well that he is losing time where he thinks he gains it; for if he does not keep himself in good repair he will sicken by-and-by, and in the long run he will do less than if he gave himself due pause.
So is it with your soul. You cannot give out a vital energy which you have not got in you healthy and vigorous; and if you have not got power from God in your own soul, power cannot come out of you, for it is not there. Do, therefore, feed upon Christ. Or do you feel yourself like that guide of whom we spoke just now? Has the routine of service blunted your sensibilities, till you gaze unmoved on those objects of beauty and marvel that should awaken every passion and thrill every nerve of your being? Ask then in what way he might keep up his interest in the lakes and the mountains?
Would it not be well for him, occasionally, at any rate, to take a lonely journey to find out new features in the gorgeous scenery or to stand in solitude, and see the hills in a fresh light, or mark the forest trees in different states of the weather; so that he might again renew his own sensations of admiration, and of gratitude to God for having created such sublimities? Then I can readily believe his enthusiasm would increase rather than abate by an increasing familiarity with the landscape.
And you, worker for God, you must go to God alone; feed on precious truth for yourself; dig into the deep things of God and enrich your own spirit. Thus you may serve God as much as ever you will: you will get no hurt therefrom. Did you notice that she also asked: “Tell me where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon?” Rest is what the worker wants. Where is the rest of Christ’s flock but in his own dear bosom? Where is there repose, but in his own fidelity, in the two immutable things wherein it is impossible for God to lie—the oath and the promise? Oh, never turn away from that rest! Turn into it again, to-night, beloved. As for me, I feel I want my Savior more than ever I did.
Though I have preached his gospel now these five-and-twenty years and more, I need still to come and cling to his cross as a guilty sinner, and find “life for a look at the crucified One,” just as I did at first. O that God’s grace may ever keep the most ardent among us always faithful with our own soul, abiding in the Lord, and rejoicing in him!
I have done. This is my word to workers. Let me only say to you for whom there has seemed nothing in the sermon, if you are not workers for Christ, you are workers against him. “He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.” O souls, why should you stand out against the Savior? Why should you resist him? Bleeding out his life for his enemies, the mirror of disinterested love, what is there in him that can make you fight against him? Drop your weapons, man! Drop them to-night, I charge you by the living God!
And come now, ask pardon through the precious blood, and it shall be given you. Seek a new heart, and a right spirit. The Holy Ghost will work it. From this night be a worker for Christ. The church wants you. The armies of Christ need recruiting. Take the proffered blessing, and become a soldier of the cross; and may the Lord build up his Zion by many of you who were not his people aforetime, but of whom it is said: “They were not my people, but they shall be the people of the living God.”
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The Unkept Vineyard; Or, Personal Work Neglected September 19, 1886 by C. H. (1834-1892) “They made me the keeper of the vineyards; but my own vineyard have I not kept.” Son 1:6 . The text is spoken in the first person singular; “They made me.” Therefore let the preaching tonight be personal to you, dear friends- personal to the preacher first, and then to each one of this mixed multitude.
May we at this hour think less of others than of ourselves! May the sermon be of practical value to our own hearts! I do not suppose that it will be a pleasing sermon- on the other hand it may be a saddening one. I may bring unhappy memories before you; but let us not be afraid of that holy sorrow which is health to the soul. Since the spouse in this text speaks of herself, “They made ME the keeper of the vineyards; but MY own vineyard have I not kept” -let each one of us copy her example, and think only of our own selves.
The text is the language of “complaint”. We are all pretty ready at complaining, especially of other people. Not much good comes of picking holes in other men’s characters; and yet many spend hours in that unprofitable occupation. It will be well for us, at this time, to let our complaint, like that of the text, deal with ourselves.
If there is something wrong at home, let the father blame himself; if there is something ill with the children, let the mother look to her own personal conduct as their instructor. Do not let us lend out our ears, but let us keep them at home for our own use. Let us clear out an open passage to the heart, so that everything that is said shall go down into the spirit, and purify our inner man. Let us from the heart make the confession “they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but my own vineyard have I not kept.”
Let us make the text “practical”. Do not let us be satisfied to have uttered the language of complaint; but let us get rid of the evils which we deplore. If we have been wrong, let us labor to be right. If we have neglected our own vineyard, let us confess it with due humiliation; but let us not continue to neglect it. Let us ask of God that holy results may flow out of our self-lamentations, so that before many days we may begin to keep our own vineyards carefully by the grace of God; and then we shall better carry out the office of keeper of the vineyards of others, if we are called to such an employment.
There are two things upon which I am going to dwell at this time.
The first is, that there are many Christian people I hope they are Christian people who will be compelled to confess that the greater part of their life is spent in labor which is not of the highest kind, and is not properly their own. I shall find out the worker who has forgotten his heavenly calling. And when I have done with this case and I am afraid that there will be much about it that may touch many of us I shall then take a more general view, and deal with any who are undertaking other works, and neglecting their own proper vocation. I. First, then, let me begin with THE MAN WHO HAS HIS HIGH AND CALLING. In the day when you and I were born again, my brethren, we were born for God. In the day when we saw that Christ died for us, we were bound henceforth to be dead to the world. In the day when we were quickened by the Holy Spirit into newness of life, that life was bound to be a consecrated one. For a thousand reasons it is true that, “You are not your own: you are bought with a price.”
The ideal Christian is one who has been made alive with a life which he lives for God. He has risen out of the dominion of the world, the flesh, and the devil.
He reckons that “if one died for all, then were all dead: and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live for themselves, but for him who died for them, and rose again.” This you will not deny. Christian friends, you admit that you have a high, holy, and heavenly calling!
Now let us look back. We have not spent our life idly: we have been forced to be keepers of the vineyards. I hope I am not addressing anybody here who has tried to live without employment and labor of some kind. No, we have worked, and we have worked hard. Most men speak of their wages as “hard-earned,” and I believe that in many cases they speak the bare truth. Many hours in the day have to be spent upon our occupations. We wake up in the morning, and think of what we have to do.
We go to bed wearied at night by what we have done. This is as it should be, for God did not make us that we might sport and play, like leviathan in the deep. Even in Paradise man was bidden to dress the garden. There is something to be done by each man, and specially by each Christian man.
Come back to what I began with. In the day when we were born again, as many of us as are new creatures in Christ Jesus, we began to live to God, and not to ourselves. Have we carried out that life? We have worked, we have even worked hard; but the question comes to us What have we worked for? Who has been our master?
With what object have we toiled? Of course, if I have been true to my profession as a Christian, I have lived and worked for God, for Christ, for the kingdom of heaven. But has it been so? And is it so now?
Many are working very hard for wealth, which means, of course, for “self”, that they may be enriched. Some are working simply for a competence, which means, if it goes no farther, still for “self”. Others work for their families, a motive good enough in its way, but still only an enlargement, after all, of “self”. To the Christian there must always be a far higher, deeper, purer, truer motive than self in its widest sense; or else the day must come when he will look back upon his life, and say, “They made me the keeper of the vineyards; but my own vineyard” -that is, the service of Christ, the glory of him that bought me with his blood “have I not kept.”
It seems to me to be a terrible calamity to have to look back on twenty years, and say, “What have I done in all those twenty years for Christ? How much of my energy has been spent in striving to glorify him?
I have had talents: how many of those talents have been used for him who gave them to me? I have had wealth, or I have had influence. How much of that money have I spent distinctly for my Lord? How much of that influence have I used for the promotion of his kingdom?”
You have been busy with this notion, and that motive, and the other endeavor; but have you lived as you will wish to have lived when you stand at his right hand amid his glories? Have you so acted that you will then judge yourself to have well lived when your Lord and Master shall come to call you to account? Ask yourself, “Am I an earnest laborer together with God, or am I, after all, only a laborious trifler, an industrious doer of nothing, working hard to accomplish no purpose of the sort for which I ought to work, since I ought to live unto my Lord alone?” I invite all my fellow-servants to take a retrospect, and just to see whether they have kept their own vineyards. I suppose that they have worked hard. I only put the question Have they kept their own vineyards?
Have they served the Lord in all things?
I am half afraid to go a step farther. To a very large degree we have not been true to our own professions: our highest work has been neglected, we have not kept our own vineyards. In looking back, how little time has been spent by us in communion with God! How little a part of our thoughts has been occupied with meditation, contemplation, adoration, and other acts of devotion! How little have we surveyed the beauties of Christ, his person, his work, his sufferings, his glory!
We say that it is “heaven below” to commune with Christ; but do we do it? We profess that there is no place like the mercy-seat. How much are we at that mercy-seat? We often say that the Word of God is precious that every page of it glows with a heavenly light.
Do we study it? Friends, how much time do you spend upon it? I venture to say that the bulk of Christians spend more time in reading the newspaper than they do in reading the Word of God. I trust that I am too severe in this statement, but I am afraid, greatly afraid, that I am not.
The last new book, perhaps the last sentimental story, will win attentive reading; when the divine, mysterious, unutterable depths of heavenly knowledge are disregarded by us. Our Puritan forefathers were strong men, because they lived on the Scriptures. None stood against them in their day, for they fed on good food, whereas their degenerate children are far too fond of unwholesome food. The ‘chaff of fiction’, and the ‘bran of the Quarterlies’, are poor substitutes for the ‘old corn of Scripture’, the ‘fine flour of spiritual truth’. Alas, my brethren, too many eat the ‘unripe fruit of the vineyards of Satan’, and the fruits of the Lord’s vines they utterly despise! Think of our neglect of our God, and see whether it is not true that we have treated him very ill.
We have been in the shop, we have been on the exchange, we have been at the markets, we have been in the fields, we have been in the public libraries, we have been in the lecture-room, we have been in the forum of debate; but our own closets and studies, our walk with God, and our fellowship with Jesus, we have far too much neglected.
Moreover, the vineyard of “holy service” for God we have too much left to go to ruin. I would ask you How about the work your God has called you to do? Men are dying; are you saving them? This great city is like a seething caldron, boiling and bubbling up with infamous iniquity- are we doing anything by way of antidote to the hell-broth concocted in that caldron? Are we indeed a power working towards righteousness? How much good have we done? What have I done to pluck brands from the burning? What have I done to find the lost sheep for whom my Savior laid down his life?
Come, put the questions, and answer them honestly! No, do not back out, and say, “I have no ability.” I do not fear have more ability than you will give an account of with joy at the last great day.
I remember a young man who complained that the little church over which he presided was so small. He said, “I cannot do much good. I have not above two hundred hearers.” An older man replied, “Two hundred hearers are a great many to have to give an account of at the last great day.” As I came in at yonder door this evening, and looked into these thousands of faces, I could not help trembling. How shall I answer for this solemn charge, for this enormous flock, in that last great day?
You have all a flock of some kind, larger or smaller. You have all, as Christian people, somebody for whom you will have to answer. Have you done your Master’s work in reference to those entrusted to you? O men and women, have you sought to save others from going down into the pit?
You have the divine remedy: have you handed it out to these sick and dying ones? You have the heavenly word which can deliver them from destruction: have you spoken it in their ears, praying all the while that God might bless it to their souls. Might not many a man among you say to himself, “I have been a tailor,” or “I have been a shop-keeper,” or “I have been a mechanic,” or “I have been a merchant,” or “I have been a physician, and I have attended to these callings; but my own vineyard, which was my Master’s, which I was bound to look to first of all, I have not kept?”
Well, now, what is the remedy for this? We need not talk of our fault any more; let us make each one his own personal confession, and then seek amendment. I believe the remedy is a very sweet one. It is not often that medicine is pleasant, but at this time I prescribe for you a charming potion. It is that you follow up the next verse to my text. Read it “My own vineyard have I not kept.
Tell me, O you whom my soul loves, where you feed, where you make your flock to rest at noon; for why should I be as one that turns aside by the flocks of your companions?”
Get to your Lord, and in him you will find recovery from your neglects. Ask him where he feeds his flock, and go with him. They have warm hearts who commune with Christ. They are prompt in duty who enjoy his fellowship. I cannot help reminding you of what I have often spoken of, namely, our Lord’s language to the church at Laodicea. That church had come to be so bad that he said, “I will spue you out of my mouth.” And yet what was the remedy for that church? “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.” After supping with Christ you will not be lukewarm.
Nobody can say, “I am neither cold nor hot” when they have been in his company. Rather they will enquire, “Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way?”
If there be an angel, as Milton sings, whose name is Uriel, who lives in the sun, I will warrant you he is never cold; so likewise, he that lives in Christ, and walks with him, is never chill, nor slow in the divine service.
Away to your Lord, then! Hasten to your Lord, and you will soon begin to keep your vineyard; for in the Song you will see a happy change effected. The spouse began to keep her vineyard directly, and to do it in the best fashion. Within a very short time you find her saying, “Catch the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines.” See, she is hunting out her sins and her follies. Farther on you find her with her Lord in the vineyard, crying, “Awake, O north wind; and come, you south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out!” She is evidently keeping her garden, and asking for heavenly influences to make the spices and flowers yield their perfume. She went down to see whether the vines flourished, and the pomegranates budded.
Anon, with her beloved, she rises early to go to the vineyard, and watch the growth of the plants. Farther on you find her talking about all manner of fruits that she has laid up for her beloved.
Thus you see that to walk with Christ is the way to keep your vineyard, and serve your Lord.
Come and sit at his feet; lean on his bosom; rest on his arm; and make him to be the joy of your spirit. The Lord grant, dear brethren, that this gentle word, which I have spoken as much to myself as to you, may be blessed to us all! II. Now, I turn to the congregation in general, and speak with THE MAN WHO IN ANY PLACE HAS TAKEN OTHER WORK, AND HIS OWN. He can use the words of the text “they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but my own vineyard have I not kept.” We know many people who are always doing a great deal, and yet do nothing; fussy people, people to the front in every movement, people who could set the whole world right, but are not right themselves. Just before a general election there is a manifestation of most remarkable men generally people who know everything, and a few things besides, who, if they could but be sent to Parliament, would turn the whole world upside down, and put even Pandemonium to rights. They would pay the National Debt within six months, and do any other trifle that might occur to them. Very eminent men are these! I have come across impossibly great men. None could be so great as these feel themselves to be.
They are an order of very superior people: reformers, or philosophers, who know what nobody else knows, only, happily, they have not patented the secret, but are prepared to tell it out to others, and thereby illuminate us all.
I suggest to our highly-gifted friends that it is possible to be looking after a great many things, and yet to be neglecting your own vineyard. There is a vineyard that a great many neglect, and that is “their own heart”. It is well to have talent; it is well to have influence; but it is better to be right within yourself. It is well for a man to see to his cattle, and look well to his flocks and to his herds; but let him not forget to cultivate that little patch of ground that lies in the center of his being.
Let him educate his head, and intermeddle with all knowledge; but let him not forget that there is another plot of ground called the heart, the character, which is more important still. Right principles are spiritual gold, and he that has them, and is ruled by them, is the man who truly lives. He has not life, whatever else he has, who has not his heart cultivated, and made right and pure.
Have you ever thought about your heart yet? Oh, I do not mean whether you have palpitations! I am no doctor.
I am speaking now about the heart in its moral and spiritual aspect. What is your character, and do you seek to cultivate it? Do you ever use the hoe upon those weeds which are so plentiful in us all? Do you water those tiny plants of goodness which have begun to grow? Do you watch them to keep away the little foxes which would destroy them? Are you hopeful that yet there may be a harvest in your character which God may look upon with approval? I pray that we may all look to our hearts. “Keep your heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.”
Pray daily, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me;” for if not, you will go up and down in the world, and do a great deal, and when it comes to the end you will have neglected your noblest nature, and your poor starved soul will die that second death, which is the more dreadful because it is everlasting death. How terrible for a soul to die of ’neglect’!
How can we escape who ’neglect’ this great salvation? If we pay every attention to our bodies, but none to our immortal souls, how shall we justify our folly? God save us from suicide by neglect! May we not have to moan out eternally, “They made me the keeper of the vineyards; but my own vineyard have I not kept!”
Now, pass over that point, and think of another vineyard. Are not some people neglecting their “families”? Next to our hearts, our households are the vineyards which we are most bound to cultivate. I shall never forget a man whom I knew in my youth, who used to accompany me at times in my walks to the villages to preach. He was always willing to go with me any evening; and I did not need to ask him, for he asked himself, until I purposely put him off from it.
He liked also to preach himself much better than others liked to hear him; but he was a man who was sure to be somewhere to the front if he could. Even if you snuffed him out, he had a way of lighting himself up again. He was good-natured and irrepressible. He was, I believe, sincerely earnest in doing good. But two boys of his were well known to me, and they would swear horribly. They were ready for every vice, and were under no restraint. One of them drank himself into a dying state with brandy, though he was a mere boy. I do not believe his father had ever spoken to him about the habit of intoxication, though he certainly was sober and virtuous himself.
I had no fault to find with him except this grave fault that he was seldom at home, was not master of the house, and could not control his children. Neither husband nor wife occupied any place of influence in the household; they were simply the slaves of their children: their children made themselves vile, and they restrained them not! This brother would pray for his children at the prayer-meeting, but I do not think he ever practiced family prayer.
It is shocking to find men and women speaking fluently about religion, and yet their houses are a disgrace to Christianity. I suppose that none of you are as bad as that; but, if it be so, please spell this text over: “they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but my own vineyard have I not kept.” The most careful and prayerful father cannot be held accountable for having wicked sons, if he has done his best to instruct them. The most anxious and tearful mother cannot be blamed if her daughter dishonors the family, provided her mother has done her best to train her up in the right way. But if the parents cannot say that they have done their best, and their children go astray, then they are blameworthy. If any of them have come to the Tabernacle tonight, and their boys and girls are they do not know where, let them go home quickly, and look them up. If any of my hearers exercise no parental discipline, nor seek to bring their children to Christ, I do implore them to give up every kind of public work until they have first done their work at home.
Has anybody made you a minister, and you are not trying to save your own children?
I tell you, sir, I do not believe that God made you a minister; for if he had, he would have begun with making you a minister to your own family. “They made me the keeper of the vineyards.” “They” ought to have known better, and you ought to have known better than to accept the call. How can you be a steward in the great household of the Lord when you cannot even rule your own house? A Sunday-school teacher, teaching other people’s children, and never praying with her own! Is not this a sad business? A teacher of a large class of youths who never has taken a class of his own sons and daughters! Why, what will he do when he lives to see his children plunged into vice and sin, and remembers that he has utterly neglected them?
This is plain dealing; but I never wear gloves when I preach. I know not where this knife may cut; but if it wounds, I beg you do not blunt its edge. Do you say that this is “very personal”?
It is meant to be personal; and if anybody is offended by it, let him be offended with himself, and mend his ways. No longer let it be true of any of us, “They made me the keeper of the vineyards; but my own vineyard have I not kept.”
Besides that, every man who knows the Lord should feel that his vineyard lies also “around about his own house”. If God has saved your children, then, dear friend, try to do something for your neighbors, for your work-people, for those with whom you associate in daily labor. God has appointed you to take care of those nearest home. They say the cobbler’s wife goes barefooted. Do not let it be true. Begin at home, and go on with those nearest home. Manifest Christian love to your neighbors.
It is a great pity that yonder Christian man, living in a very dark part of London, comes to the Tabernacle, and does good in our societies, but never speaks a word for Jesus in the court where he lives.
Poor stuff, poor stuff, is that salt which is only salt when it is in the salt-box! Throw that kind of salt away. We want a kind of salt that begins to bite into any bit of food it touches. Put it where you like, if it is good salt, it begins to operate upon that which is nearest to it. Some people are capital salt in the box: they are also good in the cake, they are beautifully white to look at, and you can cut them into ornamental shapes; but they are never used; they are merely kept for show. If salt does not preserve anything, throw it away. Ask the farmer whether he would like it for his fields. “No,” he says, “there is no goodness in it.” Salt that has no saltiness in it is of no use. You can make the garden path of it.
It is good to be trodden under foot of men, but that is all the use to which you can put it. O my beloved fellow Christians, do not let it be said that you reside in a place to which you do no good whatever.
I am sure if there were individual, personal work on the part of Christians in the localities where they reside, God the Holy Spirit would bless the unanimous action of his earnest, quickened church, and London would soon know that God has a people in the midst of it. If we keep away from the masses if we cannot think of laboring in a district because it is too low or too poor we shall have missed our vocation, and at the last we shall have to lament, “They made me the keeper of the vineyards; but my own vineyard have I not kept.” You and I must cry mightily to the Holy Spirit to help us to live really and truly, the lives which our professions demand of us. A day will come when all church-goings, and chapel-goings, and preachings, and singings, and sacraments, will seem fluff and useless stuff, if there has not been the substance of real living for Christ in all our religiousness. Oh that we would rouse ourselves to something like a divine earnestness! Oh that we felt the grandeur of our heavenly surroundings! We are no common men! We are loved with no common love! Jesus died for us!
He died for us! He died for us! And is this poor life of ours- so often dull and worldly, our sole return? Behold that piece of land! He that bought it paid his life for it, watered it with bloody sweat, and sowed in it a divine seed. And what is the harvest? We naturally expect great things. Is the poor starveling life of many a professor a fit harvest for Christ’s sowing his heart’s blood?
God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, all in action what is the result? Omnipotence linking hands with love, and working out a miracle of grace! What comes of it, so far as ‘you’ are concerned? A halfhearted professor of religion. Is this all the result? O Lord, was there ever so small an effect from so great a cause? You might almost need a microscope to discover the result of the work of grace in some people’s lives. Ought it to be so?
Shall it be so? In the name of him that lives and was dead, dare you let it be so? Help us, O God, to begin to live, and keep the vineyard which you yourself have given to us to keep, that we may render in our account at last with joy, and not with grief! Amen.