A Private Enquiry
(No. 2184)
A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, JANUARY 18, 1891,
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. ON THURSDAY EVENING, OCTOBER
9, 1890.
"What is the thing that the Lord has said unto you?" 1 Samuel 3:17.
THE Lord would not speak directly to Eli, although he was the High
Priest. In ordinary circumstances it would have been so, but Eli had
grieved the Lord, and thus had lost his honorable standing. God had not
cast him off, but He viewed him with such displeasure that He would
only speak to him through another person–even as great kings, if they
are offended with their courtiers–send them messages by other hands.
The Lord sent, first, a man of God to warn Eli of what would be the
sure result of his lack of firmness with his sons. And when He gave him
a second warning, it was sent through one who was a little underling in
his family.
O you saints who live upon familiar terms with the Lord, take heed of
sin, lest you lose your close communion, your favored fellowship and
stand in a second place! God will speak to you, but it will be in
warning and in a roundabout way–not face to face, with His lips to
your ear, as He has been known to do while you have pleased Him. God
will not cast you off, but He may set you aside for a time. You may
still hear His message through others, but He will be silent to you,
personally. You may have to live in the frigid zone of doubt and
anxiety, instead of sunning yourselves in the full blaze of Divine
Love. It was so with Eli–he had forborne to rebuke sin in his own
house–and had brought the anger of God upon himself! And, therefore,
he had no comfortable union and no honor with Jehovah, but must be
schooled by a
child.
Further, when God had sent a man of God to Eli and the message did not
awaken him to a sense of his sin in overindulgence of his sons and
toleration of evil in those under him, the Lord sends him a threatening
word by a child, for God has many messengers. The sending of the child,
Samuel, to bear the terrible tidings to the aged priest was a sweet but
stern rebuke of Eli. The child is awake, while the old man is locked in
the slumber which comes of a seared conscience. Experience must now be
admonished by childhood and wisdom by simplicity! Gray hairs, in this
case, yield not a crown of glory to the erring ruler, but he must bow
his head in sorrow at a rebuke brought to him by a lowly boy. The child
is evidently more trusted by God than the venerable priest! It was the
beginning of the Divine chastisement that his honor should pass away
and an aged priest should stand reproved by a youthful Prophet. There
was much mercy in it, yet we clearly see the Lord stripping His servant
of his decorations and setting him in a lower place–making the Urim
and the Thummim which he wore upon his breast to be of secondary power
for showing the future, while the Spirit rested more fully on a holy
boy.
He, whose talk was still that of childhood, becomes a mouth for God,
while the venerable ruler of his people has nothing to say but to
submit to his inevitable punishment! Eli was a man of God and,
notwithstanding his great chastisement and his mournful death, I doubt
not that he died in the Lord. But he brought dishonor on his own name
and he was condemned to know that his holy office would not be
continued in his line–that none of his descendants should live to old
age. He had not duly honored the Lord and, therefore, he heard the
sentence pronounced on him and on his race. "They that honor Me, I will
honor, and they that despise Me shall be lightly esteemed." He had
spared the rod of rebuke and, therefore, the axe ofjudgment fell on his
house, "because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them
not." O Brothers and Sisters, let us beware of sin–of allowing sin in
those under our charge–lest the Lord lay us low and send an affliction
upon us, which shall cleave to our race forever!
We will now use Eli's question, by which he extracted from Samuel the
message of God, and we will view it in three lights. First, as put to
Samuel. Secondly, as coming from Eli. And, thirdly, as capable of being
turned upon ourselves. We will ask it of ourselves, as another might
ask it. And we will answer it to our own hearts, so that we may, by a
rehearsal, become ready to give an answer to him that shall ask us in
days to come. Come, my heart, answer to yourself, "What is the thing
that the Lord has said to you?" May the Holy Spirit help you by
bringing all things to your remembrance, whatever He has said to you!
I. First, let us view this question as addressed TO SAMUEL.
The first remark which we shall make upon it is that God does speak to
men. Otherwise this would be a senseless ques-tion–"What is the thing
that the Lord has said unto you?" God does communicate with mortals. He
is not shut up all alone by Himself in sublime solitude. He has not
placed His creatures at an immeasurable distance, with an impassable
abyss between their littleness and His own grandeur. It is not true
that He cannot hear their cries, nor respond to them in tones of love.
In ways suitable to their feeble nature, the Lord has spoken to men.
He has done so in the Inspired volume of His sacred Word. Every line in
this priceless volume was dictated by the Spirit and is a message from
God to men. This Book is to be read as the record of Jehovah's voice.
It is the phonograph of our Father's speech in days gone by. What He
has spoken aforetime by His voice, He continues to speak to us by His
written Word. He spoke through Prophets and Seers, Evangelists and
Apostles–and here we have it–even all that is of abiding significance
to us upon whom the ends of the world are come.
God, in a renewed manner, speaks to us by His Word when His Spirit
applies it to us individually. We never truly hear the voice of God in
Scripture until the Truth of God is spoken home to each heart and
conscience by the Holy Spirit. Revelation must be revealed to each one,
otherwise it soon comes to be a veiling of the Truth, rather than a
discovering of the Lord's mind. The Revelation is clear enough in
itself, but we have not the opened eyes till Divine Grace bestows it.
If we have not the Spirit of God, the letter may actually become a veil
to hide the spirit of Truth. This, indeed, it should not be, neither is
it according to its natural intent and tendency–but our depravity
makes it so, turning even the Light of God, itself, into a thing which
blinds. Do you know what it is to have a text leap out of the
Scriptures upon you and carry you away? This special energy and flash
of Truth is always memorable. How often have the waves of this sea of
Truth been phosphorescent before my eyes–a sea of glass mingled with
fire–of which the spray has dashed over me and set my soul on fire! As
surely as the Lord spoke these words to Moses, or to David, or to
Isaiah, or to John, or to Paul, so surely does He speak them to our
souls by His Spirit. Do you understand what I say?
Moreover, our God has ways of communicating His mind to His children by
those of His servants who speak in His name. He directs the thoughts of
His ministers and suggests their words so that they speak to the cases
of those who are led to hear the Word of God.
By our own thoughts, also, the Lord communes with us. If we will be
still before Him, He will prepare our hearts and in silence we shall
hear His voice. It would be a strange thing if God could not and did
not communicate with His own children. And it is still more strange and
sad that, though He does speak, His people are slow of heart and dull
of hearing.
Our God also speaks to us in Providence. In choice favors we hear His
soft and tender tones. In chastisement and rebukes we hear the sterner
notes. But every sound is full of love. The Lord has ways of taking His
children apart and speaking to them upon their beds. In the wilderness
He speaks to the heart. He can talk with us in Nature. Have you not
heard Him in the thunder? In the roaring of the sea? Yes, we hear Him,
not only in the dash of Niagara, but in the ripple of the brook and the
smiling of a primrose on its bank! The Lord is never voiceless except
to the earless soul. He speaks– let us hear.
Here we make a further remark–God regards not age in His speaking, but
He condescends to speak with young children. Samuel was the Lord's in
his long clothes and served the Lord while a boy–and the Lord did not
disdain to come to his little cot at night and call him by his name. We
often talk as if it could not be possible that the Lord should speak
with boys and girls and yet, my Brothers and Sisters, there is not much
more of a stoop in God's talking with a child than in His speaking to a
man! Indeed, the man has more of sin and thus he is often farther off
from God than the child. If the children here present are, by God's
Grace, made willing to hear God's voice–if they are obedient to the
Lord and have open hearts and attentive minds towards His Word–the
great God will not pass them by! The Lord stoops to the lowli-
ness of a child and smiles at its simplicity. If young people are
prayerful, thoughtful, reverent, believing and obedient, the fact that,
like Samuel, they are small in stature and young in years, shall be no
detriment to them! The Lord will speak and call them by their names.
My observation leads me to believe that many children have heard more
of God than persons who are grown up. They may not find willing ears to
hear what the Lord has said to them, but if they did, they could tell
us marvelous things. Some of us remember how, in our own childhood, the
Lord dealt wonderfully with us and there were "prophecies which went
before" concerning us, whose meaning we can now read, though at the
time we did not understand them. I think that young Samuel was one of
the fittest persons in the world for the Lord to choose as His
messenger. And so far from its being unusual for young ears to hear the
voice from Heaven, I think they are the best prepared to do so. Four
times the Lord said, "Samuel, Samuel," and the child responded and said
at last, when he knew who it was that called him, "Speak, Lord, for
Your servant hears." Anyone here who can say from his heart, "Speak,
Lord, for Your servant hears," will not be long without a word from the
Invisible! Oh, that our ears may be opened to heavenly tidings–may be
wakened, morning by morning, by the voice of the Lord! May we often
hear it as the morning song and the evening hymn! May the Lord also
hear our voices in prayer and praise and meditation till our lives
shall be a holy dialog between our souls and our God, never dying down
into silence, but lasting on until we behold Him face to face!
Our next observation is that when we do hear the voice of God we should
be deeply impressed by it. Young Samuel gave evidence that he deeply
felt the responsibility of having heard the voice of God. We read that,
"Samuel lay till morn-ing"–he did not go to sleep, but he did not
leave his bed. He laid still and thought. After hearing that terrible
word which made his heart heavy and caused his ears to tingle, like a
wise child, he lay still and pondered it in his soul. He did not rush
in upon Eli, for the news was hard to tell. Neither did he seek out
another confidant. He had been called to be the Lord's Prophet. He was
conscious of his commission and he became sober beyond his years. "He
lay till morning." What thoughts passed through his mind on his bed! He
had been a child when he went to rest last night and now he had
suddenly become a man with a dread secret entrusted to him!
A pressing anxiety was on him as to how he should speak to Eli–and a
battle raged within his heart between a fear of grieving the good old
man by the message–and the greater fear of grieving God by keeping any
of it back. He remained still upon his bed, quietly meditating and
turning over what he had heard, and thinking of what he should do. I
would to God that, after every sermon, all my hearers, young and old,
had a quarter of an hour alone! A night of wakeful thought over it
would be still better. I am sure that what is needed with our religious
reading is time for private thought. We put into the mill more than it
grinds! Some people imagine that if they read so many chapters of the
Bible every day, it will be much to their profit–but it is not so if
the reading is a mere mechanical exercise. It will be far better to
read a tenth as much and weigh it–and let it take possession of brain
and heart. A little food cooked is better for dinner than a great joint
raw. A man who wants to see a country must not hurry through it by
express train, but he must stop in the towns and villages and see what
is to be seen. He will know more about the land and its people if he
walks the highways, climbs the mountains, stays in the homes and visits
the workshops, than if he does so many miles in the day and hurries
through picture galleries as if death were pursuing him. Don't hurry
through Scripture, but pause for the Lord to speak to you. Oh, for more
meditation! Samuel, "lay till morning." Wise child that! With such work
before him for his head and his heart, he did well to lie quiet, take a
breath and collect his strength.
Next, the heavenly voice made such an impression on his mind that he
feared to tell it to Eli. The message was so dreadful to him that he
dreaded to repeat it to him whom it most concerned. When you and I know
God's Word and hear God's voice in it, it will often strike us with a
solemn awe which will quite overpower us. Jacob, when he saw the ladder
and the angels, did not say in the morning, "How delightful was the
vision! How happy was my dream!" That would have been like the language
of shallow, superficial minds. But he said, "How dreadful is this
place! This is none other but the House of God and this is the gate of
Heaven." I know that God's Revelation of Himself to us is calculated to
fill us with intense joy, but it is even more likely to cast us down
upon our faces, prostrate before His Divine Majesty, in solemn awe of
the Lord of Hosts. Remember how John put it. "When I saw Him, I fell at
His feet as dead." He was the best beloved of the Lord and yet, at the
sight of our glorious Well-Beloved, he had no life left in him, but he
swooned at His feet! Marvel not that "the child Samuel feared"–and
especially feared to tell Eli the vision. I say that when you and I
hear the voice of the Lord our God, it will create in us deep emotions
of fear, of joy and of holy reverence–and we shall
know of a surety that it is no little thing to hear the Word of the
Most High. We shall tremble at His Word, yet we shall rejoice to hear
it!
I would say, next, that we should store up in our memories whatever God
says to us. These are not things which we can safely allow to slip.
What is written in this Book should be transferred to our memories. It
is a good thing to learn passages of Scripture by heart, even as
classical scholars treasure up the words of their favorite authors. It
is a good thing to have texts of Scripture used from day to day to
sweeten the breath and then laid by in the heart to perfume the
character. A mind well stored with Biblical lore will be a great cheer
to us, should we live, like Eli, till our eyes are dim and we cannot
see to read. The Bible in the memory is better than the Bible in the
bookcase. All that this child heard from the Lord, he kept in his
memory, so that, when the time came, he could produce it, "every whit."
And in later days could write it down in this, his history. Oh, that
you and I were able to produce "every whit" of what God has spoken to
us! Alas, too often the Word has come and it has gone–and it has left
small trace behind. We have heard and we have forgotten. God grant
that, after this, whenever we hear what God, the Lord, shall speak, we
may mark, learn and inwardly digest the same! And then it will not
depart from us, but will remain for our growth, strength and building
up.
One more remark. Looking at the text in its light toward Samuel, we
learn that we should be able to tell what we hear from God. We find Eli
saying to Samuel, "What is the thing that the Lord has said unto you?"
If God has spoken to us, somebody or other will need to know and will
have a right to be informed. It may be that many whom we esteem will
wish to know what God has spoken to us–so we must be prepared–even
though it is with a measure of fear and trembling, to tell them the
solemn tidings. What is whispered in our ears in the closet we may have
to speak on the housetops.
Samuel did this very solemnly, with a deep sense of its weight.
Children are generally eager to tell a story, but they do not always
consider what effect its repetition may produce. They are not able to
keep a secret, but feel a pleasure in communicating what they know. But
this child was now raised up by the Spirit of prophecy and became
tender and thoughtful. And as it would cause Eli great anguish, he was
very slow to speak. He did not open his mouth on the matter till he was
commanded by Eli, and then he did it as a sacred duty. Young Christians
should speak much of their Lord and His Gospel. God forbid that I
should hinder them! But it will be well for them to speak, not because
it is pleasant, but because they must. We must tell out the Divine Word
because there is a woe upon us if we withhold it. We must not be
flippant, but solemnly, under constraint. Much zeal is very natural,
but very worthless, because its source is not Divine. That zeal which
is kindled and sustained by a heavenly power which makes us feel that
we must speak or the very stones would cry out against us–this zeal, I
say, is of an effectual kind–and the more of it the better! If I only
feel that I may, or may not, tell what I think I have heard from the
Lord, the probability is that I had better be silent. The true
prophetic Word is as fire in the bones–it must come out–and yet when
it is spoken it is with lips which a live altar-coal has blistered.
Samuel did his work very carefully and completely. We read, "and Samuel
told him every whit, and hid nothing from him." He said nothing more
and nothing less than God had spoken. You know how difficult it is to
repeat a story correctly. You may try it at your own table, with all
the good people around it. Whisper a story into the ear of the next
person to you and let it be repeated in the same fashion from one to
another and, by the time it comes round the small circle, it will be
quite a fresh affair! Additions and subtractions are weeds which are
hard to keep out of the garden of conversation! Alas, this holds good
even of the Word of the Lord–how many add to it or take from it! But
the child Samuel repeated his story correctly because the fear of the
Lord was upon him. When you do tell the Gospel, tell it correctly, for
it is wonderfully easy to make another gospel of it–and the tendency
to do so is very powerful in these days. How many are proclaiming a
mutilated gospel and are not telling "every whit!" Some part of
Revelation they think too high, or too dry or too orthodox, or too
something or other–and so their overweening conceit induces them to
leave it out. Oh, do not so, I pray you!
Samuel is to be commended that, when he had to tell Eli what God had
spoken, he left out nothing. Tell out the Gospel, you ministers of
Christ! Give Christ His due! Give fair proportion to each Truth of God.
Do not magnify one doctrine to the exclusion of another, but endeavor
to paint the portrait of Revelation with every feature in its place and
in due proportion to the rest. It is great wisdom to be able to repeat
fully and faithfully what God has spoken to us. May the Holy Spirit aid
us herein!
It was a very painful duty which the holy child was called upon to
perform. Samuel loved his foster father and for him to mention the
tremendous doom pronounced upon Eli's house must have caused him great
grief of spirit. But he bravely
repeated the dread words of the Most High. There are certain Truths in
God's Word which we tremble to think upon. Do you dream that we have
any pleasure in the doctrine of eternal punishment? We speak of the
wrath to come and the everlasting punishment which God apportions to
the impenitent with fear and trembling, but we speak of it because we
cannot escape from the conviction that it is taught in the Word of God!
As Samuel was compelled to tell Eli of the unalterable curse that God
had pronounced upon his household, so must God's faithful servants, in
the discharge of their duty, speak of the doom of the wicked and never
flinch from warning them. O my Hearers, "he that believes not shall be
damned," is as true as, "he that believes and is baptized shall be
saved." We must speak all the Gospel or else the blood of souls will
stain our skirts at the Last Great Day. However painful a duty it may
be, it is none the less binding upon us!
But then, in Samuel's case, it was an obvious duty. It must have been
clear to the young Prophet that he must tell Eli what so much concerned
him. This conclusion would be reached without much reasoning. If God
had spoken to Samuel, it could only be that he might tell Eli. My
Hearer, if the Lord has told you anything about eternal things, He has
revealed it that you may pass it on. The Truth of God is no man's
private property, to be kept under lock and key, as a secret hoard for
personal enrichment. Whatever you know about Christ, tell it! Whatever
you know about salvation and Sovereign Grace, tell it! It is revealed
to you that you may bear it aloft like a flaming torch for the
enlightening of others! God will not speak again to the man who does
not spread His Truth. Samuel perceived his duty clearly.
And, dear Friends, to communicate the message of God was a very weighty
duty to the child Samuel. Read what Eli said to him. "I pray you, hide
it not from me: God do so to you, and more, also, if you hide anything
from me of all the things that He said unto you." My Brother in the
Gospel, what if you and I should keep back some painful part of God's
message and God should do so to us, and more, also? I cannot bear to be
lost and yet I shall be lost if I decline to warn others of their
danger and of the doom of unbelief! I cannot bear to be cast away
forever from the Presence of God, yet this woe will be unto me if I
preach not the Gospel and do not declare the whole counsel of God! The
result of unbelief and sin in others will fall on us if we do not warn
them! O Sirs, if we are unfaithful, God will deal with us at the Day of
Judgment as He will deal with the wicked–this is an awful outlook for
us! May we never dare to tone down the more severe parts of the Gospel
and flatter men in their sins, for if we do this, God will mete out to
us a portion with the condemned! If we have sown pillows for their
armholes and rocked their cradles by our smooth speech, their eternal
ruin shall lie at our door! How shall we bear it when God shall "do so
to us, and more, also," because we kept back His message from the sons
of men who so much needed it? Let us resolve that come what will, we
will keep back nothing of the Truth of God which the Lord has entrusted
to us. A false witness for God, a liar to men's souls–what sentence
can be greater than his deserts? Is it possible for us to be too
earnest here?
I have said enough upon the text in its first light. I pray for
practical result from it. The Lord does speak to men and it behooves
them to hear with reverence–and make known His Word with solemn
fidelity and earnestness.
II. Let us now view the question as it comes FROM ELI.
I understand from Eli's question, first, that we should willingly
learn, even from a child. "What? Shall I, a man of 70 or 80, learn from
a child?" asks one. Yes, unless you are more foolish than Eli, you may
do so. Eli, with all his faults, was willing to hear what God might
speak, even if he heard it from the lips of the child, Samuel. How
unwise people are when they will not hear a man, but make up their mind
that he knows nothing! Some would not hear the most precious Truth of
God from the lips of a man whom they despise. Certain of the friars in
Luther's day confessed that much of what Luther said was very true and
a reformation was certainly very much needed, but then, they would not
have it from such a fellow as Luther–a renegade monk who spoke so
rudely! Erasmus could be endured, but Luther made such a noise about
it!
Teaching is often judged, not by its own value, but by the prejudices
which people may happen to have concerning the source from which it
comes. "I do not like him," says one. Well, what does it matter whether
you like him or not? What does he say? If a thing is true, never mind
who says it. Believe it! If a babe could be put into the pulpit and it
lisped out the precious Gospel of Christ, its lisping would be more
worth hearing than all the eloquence of men of years and name whose
objective might be to overthrow men's faith. Let the Truth of God come
from where it may, welcome it! If God has spoken, though it be but to a
boy in knickerbockers, be ready to ask him, "What is the thing that the
Lord has said to you?"
Next, learn from Eli that we should be willing to know the very worst
of our case. Let me repeat that word–we should be willing to know the
very worst of our case. I have used this expression in my own prayers
many a time–"Lord, let me know the worst of my case." I suggest it as
a very excellent petition. Surely, we do not wish to be left in a
fool's paradise, pleased with the idea that we are rich and increased
in goods and have need of nothing–when all the while we are naked,
poor and miserable. We desire to be informed as to our condition. We
would know even the frightful truth, the humbling truth, what some
would even call the degrading truth–if, indeed, it is truth. We wish
to be degraded, if to know the truth would make us feel degraded.
Better in the abyss of a truth than on the summit of a lie! We wish to
be, in our own sight, what we are in the sight of God. We would not be
shams, hypocrites, veneered pretenders, but we would be good men and
true.
Dear Friend, for this reason do not be angry with the minister if, when
you go to hear him on the Lord's Day, his text is not a promise, or a
sweet bit of doctrine, but a warning and an exhortation, or even a
condemnation. Bare your back to the whip and take your share of the
lashes. If the Lord's servant has nothing to give but what comes from
the bitter box, do not make faces over it. If he is the Lord's steward
and deals out God's Truth, quarrel not with him, lest you be found
contending with your Maker! Take the portion, or I might say the
potion–it may be the very thing you need. If God has sent you a bitter
potion, it will be better for you than the sweetest dainties a
smooth-tongued flatterer could prepare. Cry to God to search you and to
make you to know your true condition as before His face.
Next, we should desire to hear the whole of God's Word. We should say
to our minister, "I pray you hide it not from me. What is the thing
that the Lord has said to you?" Oh, that our Hearers would desire this
at our hands! Ask us, yes, plead with us to tell you all that we know
of the Truth of God–and when you have heard all that we know of the
Truth–search the Scriptures and find out more, that you may be well
instructed in the things which make for your peace. Be like Eli–afraid
to have anything kept from you–and anxious to have full information.
Like Eli, we should demand faithfulness. We should say to the teacher,
to the friend who is dealing with our soul, "I pray you hide it not
from me; but be faithful to me." You do not go to a surgeon that he may
falsely assure you that you have no wound. And I hope you do not come
here that I may give you unsafe comfort and make you feel content in
sin. No, Beloved, if you come aright, you say, "I go to hear the Word
of God as I go to a physician, that I may have my case truthfully
described and honestly treated by one who takes his Master's medicines
out of his Master's treasures." Hear not that which makes you contented
with self, but that which leads you to seek higher and better things.
Let those who are foolish desire to be lulled into the deadly slumber
of delusion, but for yourselves, seek after the Truth of God, the whole
Truth of God and nothing but the Truth of God–and love that which
humbles you and draws you nearer to your Lord!
Dear Hearers, pray for us who are preachers of the Gospel, that we may
be made faithful and kept so! You know the prevailing currents of these
times are toward flesh-pleasing teaching. Men aspire to be clever and,
to that end, they must appear to be bold thinkers, highly cultured and
far removed from the old worn-out notions of orthodoxy. Many are the
floral displays in sermons! Sheaves of corn are too plain and rustic.
This is the age of bouquets and wreaths of rare flowers. Paul must give
way to Browning and David to Tennyson. Brothers, there are enough in
the novelty business without us–we have something better to do! We
have to give an account unto our God of what we do and say. And if we
have been murderers of souls, it will be no excuse that we flourished
the dagger well, or that, when we gave them poison, we mixed the
draught cleverly and presented it with poetical phrases. Pray for us
that we may be clear of the blood of all men. Keep us right by saying
to us, "What is the thing the Lord has said to you? I pray you, hide it
not from me!"
III. And now, we conclude by considering the question TO AND FROM
OURSELVES. I want to put a series of questions very briefly and with
great solemnity.
Have we ever asked the Lord to speak to us? Yes, yes, my Sister, I know
you have! And you, my Brother, you have done still more, for God has
already spoken to you. But here, on Thursday evenings, are many
unconverted people and I am much rejoiced that you care to come on a
week-night to such a place as this. I do not attribute your presence,
in every case, to the highest motive, for you come to hear a preacher
of whom you have heard much talk. And at another time you will go to
hear some noted orator in another place. Did you ever say to yourself,
"I will hear what God the Lord will speak"? This would be a far better
objective than listening to human rhetoric. Have you shut yourself up
in your room, or have you gone into the woods, or climbed a hilltop, or
sat down by the sea and said, "Speak to me, Lord! If there are voices
out of the eternal and the unseen, here am I to hear them. In mercy
speak to me"? My dear Hearer, are you God's
creature and have you never heard the voice of your Creator? Do you
think yourself God's child and do you live by the month together and
never hear your Father's voice? This is pitiable–alas, it is
blameworthy! I press the question home. Have you ever asked the Lord to
speak to you?
Next, have we all regarded what God has spoken? When we were young, on
a Sabbath we heard a word from the pulpit which seemed to go right
through us–and then and there we wished that we could go home to our
chamber to pray. And when we got home, we shut our door and we cried
out in our anxiety because all was not right between God and our souls.
But what came of it? The tears we shed–were they the tokens of coming
conversion? Is it not sadly true that Monday found us at our old
tricks? We had forgotten what manner of men we were! Was it not so? Is
it so still with some of you? Has God spoken and spoken, and spoken,
and spoken, again, and do you still act like the adder that will not
hear, though the charmer charms most wisely? Are you as the ass and as
the mule which have no understanding and need bit and bridle before you
will obey your Master? The Lord have mercy upon you if it is so! If you
have been brutish and obstinate, may Divine Grace subdue you.
A further question is this–Have we shaped our lives by what God has
said? I know many people who read their Bibles and know what the
Scripture means, but they never practice what God says to them. Among
the rest, they neglect that great Gospel promise–"He that believes and
is baptized shall be saved." They have neither believed nor been
baptized. They are bid to do this and that as Believers–and, avowing
themselves to be Believers, they yet refuse to their Lord the obedience
which He claims! O my Hearers, to know the Word of God and not to put
it into practice is to make rods for your own backs, for he that knew
his Master's will and did it not was beaten with many stripes. The more
you know, the more stripes will come upon you if you have only
knowledge and not obedience! Does not this truthful word come home to
some who are sitting here at this time? It ought to do so! God grant
that it may lead the "hearers only" to become "doers of the word"!
Next, Brothers and Sisters, have we told what we know? That is a
practical point. I speak to quite a number of Christian men and women
who would have to confess, "No. I am like Samuel, so far that I fear to
tell Eli the vision." You were going to speak to the person who sat in
the pew with you the other Sunday and you almost got a word out, but it
died on your lips. For idle words you will have to give an account. You
meant to pray with your child, Mother, but you have not done it yet.
What if she dies before you have done so? Good Friend, you meant to
speak to the man at the next bench in your workshop. Ah, you have meant
to do it so many times! I had a friend, a dear friend, who is now, I
trust, in Heaven, and there was a man who used to take orders from him
for goods and bring them to him when finished. He was a good and
punctual workman, but not a Christian. Well, my friend intended–ah, he
intended for years–to have a quiet conversation with that workman
about his soul.
One day the goods came in, but a woman brought them. She said, "I am
So-and-So's wife. He finished these goods, but he is dead." My friend
said that the words were like a bullet to his heart, for he had so
often thought of the man and often said to himself, "I must and will
speak to him the next time he calls." But somehow, when he came into
the shop, business was brisk and he looked over the goods and paid for
them as quickly as he could–and never began a conversation! Now the
man was beyond the reach of warning or instruction. Do not let it be so
with any person with whom you come in contact! Do as Samuel did–tell
the whole of it if they ask you to tell them–or even if they do not
ask you to tell them! Those who do not ask you are probably those who
have the most need of your efforts! I believe there is an art in
private conversation. Certain of our dear friends are always telling
out the Gospel on all sides and they seem to do it with much ease. I
speak of my Lord, also, to individuals, but I must confess that it does
not come so easy to me to speak to an individual as to preach to
thousands. We must school ourselves to it. That art of buttonholing and
coming into close contact with individuals is one that we must
cultivate–and we must not be satisfied until we become expert in
it–for it is one of the chief ways in which men are saved.
Lastly, there is one question which I would like to ask and I have
done. Do our children ever rebuke us? Perhaps we have no children–they
are all grown up, but possibly we have grandchildren. This Samuel was
to Eli like a grandchild. His sons were grown up and had left him. But
here was this little one brought into the Temple to minister there and
the old man came to be rebuked by this little child! I have known
some–perhaps they are even now present–who are godless fathers,
drunken fathers, but their grandchildren are members of the Church and
good, gracious, amiable, lovely, useful children, too! Grandfathers,
are you going down to Hell while your grandchildren are going to
Heaven? I charge
you by the living God, before whose bar you must surely stand, look at
your little ones and hear their prayers and hear their hymns–could you
bear to be everlastingly separated from them? And, Fathers, this should
come home closely to you. You know that girl of yours–how you love
her–and well you may! Your heart is bound up in your little daughter.
She is everything a child can be to a father–but she often weeps
because she tries to get you to hear the Gospel and you will not come.
Sunday to you is not what it is to her and that grieves her.
You were making a rabbit hutch last Sunday, were you not? And your
child said, "Father, do come to the House of God," but you would not
come, and you pained your child. Will you bear in mind a solemn Truth
of God? If your daughter goes to the right and you go to the left, you
are probably parting forever. It is not possible that the way of sin
should end where the way of righteousness will end! Do not choose
eternal separation from your dear ones who love the Lord. Think these
things over because, on a Sabbath, when we celebrate the Lord's Supper,
some of you have to go away and leave a wife or a dear child behind to
commune at the sacred feast. Many thoughts are stirred at that dividing
time. I wish that such searching of heart might arise tonight in
downright earnest. There will be weeping–there will be weeping, at the
Judgement Seat of Christ! And if children now rebuke their Christless
friends, what will be the thunder of that rebuke when they shall be
caught up to the Throne of the highest and their ungodly relatives are
cast out forever into the pit prepared for the wicked? God bless you
all richly, for Jesus' sake! Amen.
PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–1 Samuel2:27-36.