Early And Late
DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, DECEMBER 10, 1865, BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT
THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"For the kingdom of Hea ven is like a landowner who went out early in
the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard… And he went out about
the third hour and saw others standing idle in the marketplace… Again
he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour and did likewise. And
about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing idle, and
said to them, 'Why have you been standing here idle all day?'"
Matthew 20:1,3, 5, 6.
WE have frequently observed that we do not think it right to neglect
the context of Scripture. We have no right to tear passages of
Scripture from their context and make them to mean what they were not
intended to teach. And therefore I have, in the reading given you,
according to my ability, what I think to be the immediate design of the
present parable. It is a rebuke to those who fall into a legal spirit
and begin calculating as to what their reward ought to be in a kingdom
where the legal spirit is entirely out of place since its reward is not
of debt, but of Divine Grace. I think I may now, without any violation
of propriety, dwell upon one very distinct fact in connection with the
parable. It is not right to violate the drift of the parable, but
having already observed it and made it as clear as we can, we believe
that we are now authorized to make use of one of the main circumstances
mentioned in it.
This morning I intend to call your attention to the fact that the
laborers were hired at different periods of the day, by which doubtless
we are taught that God sends His servants into His vineyard at
different times and seasons. Some are called in early youth and others
are not led to enter into the service of the Master until declining
years have brought them almost to the eventide of life. I must,
however, ask you to remember that they were all called–by the mention
of which the Savior would teach us that no man comes into the kingdom
of Heaven of himself. Without exception, every laborer for Jesus has
been called in one sense or another and he would not have come without
being so called. They are all called.
Were a man what he should be, he would need no pressing and invitation
to come to the Gospel of Christ. But since human nature is perverted
and men put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter, darkness for light
and light for darkness, man needs to be called by the outward word. He
needs to be invited, persuaded and entreated. He needs, to use the
strong expression of the Apostle Paul, to be told that as though God
did beseech him by us, we should pray him, in Christ's place, to be
reconciled to God. No, further than this, although some men come to
work in a legal spirit in the vineyard through this common call of the
Gospel, yet no man in spirit and in truth comes to Christ without a
further call, namely, the effectual call of God's Holy Spirit.
The general call is given by the minister–it is all that he can give.
If the preacher attempts to give the particular call as some of my
hyper-Calvinistic Brethren do–confining the Gospel command to a
certain character and trying to be, themselves, the discoverers of
God's elect and to make that particular which is always universal–if
the preacher acts thus and virtually endeavors to give the particular
call–he makes a sorry mess of it and usually fails altogether to
preach the Gospel of glad tidings to the sons of men.
But when man is content to do what he can do, namely, preach the
commandment, "that we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ," and that, "God
commands all men everywhere to repent," then there comes with the
general call to the chosen of God a particular and special call which
none hut the Holy Spirit can give, but which He gives so effectually
that all who hear it become willing in the day of God's power and turn
with full purpose of heart unto the Lord! In what sense is it true that
many are called but few chosen if none are to be called by the
preaching of the Word but those who are chosen? There are two
callings–the one is general to all who hear of Jesus and many who are
thus called are not chosen. The other is personal and peculiar to the
elect–"for whom He did predestinate, them He also called."
To return to our point. All in the vineyard are in some sense called.
There is not a solitary exception to this rule in the entire Christian
Church. The doctrine of freewill has not a single specimen to show to
prove itself. There is not a sheep in all the flock that came back to
the shepherd unsought. There is not a single piece of money which
leaped again into the woman's purse–she swept the house to find
it–no, I will go further and say there is not even a single prodigal
son in the entire family who did ever say, "I will arise and go unto my
Father," till first the Father's Grace, veiling itself in the
afflicting Providence of a mighty famine, had taught the prodigal the
miserable results of sin as he fed the swine and gladly would have
filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat, but could not
do so.
I want you to notice another fact before I come to the subject now in
hand, and that is that all those who are called are said to have been
hired. Of course in a parable no word is to be construed harshly–we
are to give the meaning according to the drift. But still, I think we
may say that there is this likeness between hiring a servant and the
engagement of a soul to Christ–a man hired has no right to serve
another–he serves the master who has hired him. When a soul is called
by Grace into the service of the Lord Jesus Christ, he cries, "O Lord,
other lords have had dominion over me, but now You only will I serve."
He plucks off the yoke of sin, its pleasure, its custom, and he puts
upon him that yoke of which the Master says it is easy, and he bears
that burden which Jesus tells us is light.
A hired servant must not work for another–he works for his master. And
so a man who is called by Grace lives not for any sinister object or
motive, but to his Master only. A hired servant, again, does not work
on his own account–he is not his own master. And, "you are not your
own, you are bought with a price." Henceforth, though he calls no man
"Master" on earth, yet he remembers that one is his Master in Heaven,
to whom all his service is due. There is a compact between the hired
man and his master and there is a solemn compact of spirit between the
true Believer and his Lord. We have devoted ourselves to His service.
We have given up all liberty of self-will, and therefore our will is at
the government of our Lord and all our powers and passions are to be,
we hope will be, through God's Grace, obedient to Him who has hired us
into the vineyard.
Now the word "hired" was used in order to bring in the idea of reward.
It was used to suit Peter's view of the case. It was used in order that
his legal question of, "What shall we have, therefore?" might be
clearly brought out and its folly shown in the light of that Sovereign
Grace which does as it wills with His own. Yet for all that, Believers
are hired in an evangelical sense–they do not serve God for
nothing–they shall not work without a reward. "The wages of sin is
death, but the gift of God is eternal life." We shall have our reward
for what we do for the Master and though it is not wages in the sense
of debt, yet verily I say unto you there shall not be a single
true-hearted worker for God who shall not receive of his Master most
blessed wages of Grace in the day when He comes to take account of His
servants.
Now to the point–the master calls these hired servants of his at
different hours of the day. And, in the second place, distinguishing
Grace shines forth in each case and is illustrated and made more
manifest in its varieties of glorious compassion and loving-kindness by
the different hours at which the chosen ones are called.
I. ALL ARE NOT CALLED BY GRACE AT THE SAME TIME. Some, according to the
parable, are called early in the morning. Thrice happy are these! The
earliest period at which a child may be called by Divine Grace would be
difficult for us positively to define. Because children are not all the
same age mentally, though their physical age may be the same, we dare
not limit the Holy One of Israel as to the chosen period of operation.
As far as our observation, Grace works upon some little ones at the
very dawn of moral consciousness. There are, no doubt, precocious
children whose intellect and affections are very much developed and
very deeply sanctified even so early as two or three years of age.
Such children usually are intended by the Master to be taken Home at
once. There are interesting biographies extant, which prove that
holiness may bloom and ripen in the youngest heart and many anecdotes
are treasured up in such collections as "Janeway's Token for Children,"
of children whom I might call infants with strict propriety, out of
whose mouth God ordained praise and did, through them, quiet the enemy
and the avenger.
Little prattlers, whose tongues it would have been supposed could only
have talked of toys, have been able to speak with an apparent
profundity of knowledge of spiritual, and especially of heavenly
things. It is certain that some have worked their day's work for the
Master in their mother's arms. They have spoken of the Savior in tones
which have melted a mother's heart and gone to a father's conscience
and then they have been taken home. "Whom the gods love die young,"
said the heathen, and doubtless it is no small privilege to be so soon
admitted into Glory. Only shown on earth and then snatched away to
Heaven–too precious to be left below!
Precious child, how dear were you to the good God who sent you here and
then took you Home! Fair rose bud, yet in the perfection of your young
beauty taken to be worn by the Savior on His bosom! How can we mourn
your translation to the skies?–
"No bitter tears for you are shed,
Blossom of being seen and gone!
With flowers alone we strew your bed,
O blest departed one!
Whose all of life, a rosy ray,
Blushed into da wn and passed away."
"Early in the morning," would also include those who have passed the
first hour of the day, but who have not yet wasted the second opening
hour. I mean those hopeful lads and girls who, perhaps, would rather I
should call them youths–those who have reached their teens–have
overleaped infancy and childhood and are growing up in the heyday and
vigor of youth. Youngsters still more at home in the playground than in
the work field–fitter, as Satan tells them–to be sporting in the
marketplace than busy in the vineyard. Such as these, to the praise of
Divine love, are often hired by the landowner.
It is worth while to warn some of our Brethren who seem to be
exceedingly dubious of boyish and girlish piety–to warn them against
indulging harsh and suspicious doubts. We have remarked, and I think
those who have watched our membership carefully will have remarked it,
too, that among all the slips and falls which have caused us sorrow, we
have had but little sorrow from those who were added to us as boys and
girls. There are those preaching the Gospel this day with acceptance
and power whom these hands baptized into Jesus Christ very early in
their boyhood, and there are among us honored servants of God who have
served this Church well, who, while they were yet at school, were
joyful followers of the Lord Jesus Christ!
With our earliest intellects some of us got an understanding of the
things of the Kingdom of God. Our Bible was our child's primer, our
spelling book–the guide of our youth and the joy of our earliest
years. We thank God that there are Timothys still among us and those
not few and far between! And young Samuels, who, being brought as
infants to the Lord's House, have from that day forth worn the linen
ephod and served, after their fashion, as priests unto God, serving Him
with all their hearts! Happy those who are called early in the morning!
They have peculiar reasons for blessing and praising God–
"Grace is a plant, wherever it grows, Of pure and heavenly root. But
fairest in the youngest shows, And yields the sweetest fruit."
Let us spend a minute in thinking of their happy case who are saved in
boyhood. Early in the morning the dew still twinkles on the leaves, the
maiden blush of dawn remains and reveals an opening beauty which is
lost to those who rise not to see the birth of day. There is a beauty
about early piety which is indescribably charming and unutterably
lovely in freshness and radiance. We remark in childhood an artless
simplicity, a child-like confidence which is seen nowhere else. There
may be less of knowing, but there is more of loving. There may be less
of reasoning, but there is more of simply believing upon the authority
of Revelation. There may be less of deep-rootedness, but there is
certainly more of perfume, beauty and emerald verdure!
If I must choose that part of the Christian life in which there is the
most joy, next to the land Beulah, which I must set first and foremost
by reason of its lying so near to Canaan, I think I would prefer that
tract of Christian experience which lies toward the rising sun which is
sown with orient pearls of love and cheered with the delicious music of
the birds of hope. Early in the morning, when we have just risen from
slumber, work is easy. Our occupation in the vineyard is a cheerful
exercise rather than a toil such as those find who bear the burden and
heat of the day. The young Christian is not oppressed with the cares
and troubles of the world as others are–he has nothing else to do but
to serve his God.
He is free from the embarrassments which surround so many of us and
prevent our doing good when we would consecrate ourselves wholly to it.
The lad has nothing to think of but his Lord. There are his books and
his lessons, but he can be fervent of spirit in the midst of them.
There are the companions of his childhood, but in guilelessness and
simplicity he may be of service to them and to God through them. Give
me, I say, if I would have an auspicious time to work for Jesus–give
me the blessed morning hours when my heart is bounding lightest and
joy's pure sunbeams tremble on my path–when my glowing breast lacks no
ardor and my happy spirit wears no chain of care!
One would prefer early conversion because such persons have not learned
to stand idle in the marketplace. A fellow, you know, who has been for
hours standing with his hands in his pockets, talking with drunken men
and so on, is not worth much at the eleventh hour! No, even by the
middle of the day it has become so natural to him to prop the walls
that he is not likely to take to work very readily. Begin early with
your souls! Break in the colts while they are young and they are likely
to take well to the collar. There are no workers like those who
commenced work while they were yet children.
What a promise of a long day there is for young Believers! The sun has
just risen and he has to travel to his zenith and to descend again.
There is ample room and time enough, though none to spare. If God, in
His Providence, permits it so to happen, that youngster yonder has
twelve hours' work before him–what may he not accomplish? For a grand
and glorious life, early piety, if not essential, is certainly a very
great advantage! To give those first days to Jesus will spare us many
sad regrets, prevent us acquiring many evil habits, and enable us to
achieve good success through the Holy Spirit's blessing. It is well to
begin to fly while yet the wings are strong, for if we live long in sin
the wings may be broken and then they will flap wearily through the
rest of our days, even when Divine Grace shall call us.
Let it be the desire of parents here to have their children converted
as children! And oh, may God cast that desire into the hearts of some
of you young people that are here this morning–that before you reach
one-and-twenty, before you are called men–you may be perfect men in
Christ Jesus–that while you are yet children you may be children of
God! May you, as "newborn babes, receive the sincere milk of the Word,"
and the Lord grant that you may "grow thereby." Happy, happy, happy
souls, whom the Master, thus by distinguishing Grace, brings "early in
the morning!"
The landowner went out again at the third hour. This may represent the
period in which we have mounted above being children and youths and are
entitled to be called men. Suppose we settle the first hour as
extending over the earliest seven or eight years of age? Then the
second hour runs on from that to twenty-one or thereabouts. And then we
have a good length of time between twenty and thirty and onwards to
reckon as the third and fourth and fifth hours. There are some whom
Divine Grace renews at the third hour. This is late! One-and-twenty is
grievously late, when you consider how much of early joy is now
impossible–how much of sinful habit has now been acquired–how many
opportunities for usefulness are now gone past recall.
A quarter of the day has flown away forever when we reach the third
hour. It is the best quarter of the day, too, that has gone past
recall. The first meal of the day is over–that blessed breaking of the
fast with Christ is no more possible. A very precious meal is that,
when the Savior gives us the morning portion, the manna which melts
when the sun is up. Blessed is the child's feeding upon Jesus–truly, I
remember when I was awakened like Elijah from under the juniper tree
and fed on such dainty fare that to this day the flavor abides with me!
The man of one-and-twenty has lost that first meal, breakfast is all
over. Christ will say to him as He will to some others, "Come and
dine," and that is precious–but the daintiest meal is over, the first
early enjoyment–the first early rapture can never be known.
I have no doubt there are many here who think that to be converted at
one-and-twenty is very soon–but why one-and-twenty years given to
Satan? Why a fourth of man's existence devoted to evil? Besides, it may
not be a fourth–it may be one half–no, in how many cases it is the
whole of life! The sun goes down before it is yet noon and the idler in
the marketplace has no hope of ever being a worker in the vineyard!
Death, who comes when God wills, and gives us no notice, may cut down
the flower before it has fully opened.
"In the morning it is like grass that grows up, in the evening it is
cut down and withers." It is late, it is sadly late! It is a sad thing
to have lost those bright days in which the mind was least engaged, in
which it was the most susceptible of forming godly habits. It is a sad
thing to have learned so much of sin as one may have learned by
one-and-twenty! It is a sad thing to have seen so much of iniquity, to
have treasured up in one's memory so much defilement. Twenty years with
God–one might have been in such a time a good scholar in the kingdom!
But twenty years in the world one begins to be like scarlet that has
been lying in the dye till it is stained through and through. It is
late, but we thank God that it is not too late. No, it is not too late
even for the grandest of purposes.
Not only is this period of life not too late for salvation, but it is
not too late to do much for Jesus Christ! Some of us, when we were
one-and-twenty, had finished five years of Christian ministry and had
been the means of bringing many souls to the Cross of Christ. But if
others are led by Grace to begin then, why there is a good period still
remaining if God, in Providence, spares our lives. The young man is now
in all his strength and vigor, his bones are full of marrow and his
heart is full of fire. We ought to have acquired a good degree of
education and be prepared to acquire more. Now he is just in the time
when he should work.
His plans of life are not settled as yet. He is probably not married.
As yet there are no children about him to have been injured by his ill
example. He has an opportunity of rearing up a household in the fear of
God. He is commencing business. He has an opportunity of so conducting
that business that there may never need to be a time when he shall have
to tack about and steer another course. He may, if called by God's
Grace at twenty-one, begin an honorable career in which there needs not
be an angle or a curve. He may go straight to the harbor's mouth! He
may steer and mark upon the sea of life one shining furrow which shall
reach in a direct line, from the present moment, straight to the lights
of Heaven! He may reach it with his sail full and a priceless cargo on
board to the praise of the glory of Divine Grace! It is late–it is
very late in some respects–but oh, it is not too late to serve the
Master well and to win a crown of great reward, the gift of Divine
love.
There is abundance of work to do for us who are in this third, fourth,
and fifth hour of the day. In fact, I suppose the Church must look to
us for its most active work. After this period and the next, a man
frequently becomes rather a recipient from the Church than a donor to
it in the matter of activity. Its fresh blood, its energy, its warmth
of heart, its ready action, must, to a great extent, come from the
young men who are converted. Oh, you of twenty-one, I would to God that
you were all born from Heaven! You maidens, in your early beauty–may
the Master in His infinite mercy bring you in! Oh, could you know the
sweetness of His love you would not need persuading! Could you
understand the joy of true religion you would not want entreating!
There is more hallowed mirth enjoyed in secret with the Lord Jesus
Christ than in all the merriment the world can yield.
One ounce of Christ's love is better than a ton of the world's
flatteries. The world offers bubbles with fair hues, bright to look
upon, but vanishing at a breath. But Christ gives real treasure,
enduring as eternity. The world's gold is all base money–it glitters,
but it is not precious. There may be less glitter about the things of
God, but there is a "solid joy and lasting pleasure," which, "none but
Zion's children know." May the Master come this morning to your hearts
and by my simple words may He call you at the third hour of the day
into the vineyard!
The landowner's kindness was not exhausted, and therefore he went out
at the sixth hour. We find him going into the market at high noon. Half
the day was over. Who is going to employ a man and give him a whole
day's wages when twelve o'clock has come? He will not do too much if
you hire him at six–what will he do if you engage him at twelve? Half
a day's work! That is a poor thing to seek or to offer. The Master,
however, seeks and accepts it. He promises, "Whatever is right, I will
give you." And there are some found who at the sixth hour enter into
the vineyard and, being saved by Grace, begin their work for Jesus.
This may represent the period of life in which man is supposed to be in
his prime–when he is past forty and onward. This is sadly late, very
sadly late. Sadly late in a great many respects–not only because there
is so little time left, but because so very much of energy and zeal and
force–which should have been given to God, has been wasted. It has, to
some extent, been used to fight against God. Forty years of hardness of
heart! That is a long time for Divine patience. Forty years of sin!
That is a long season for conscience to mourn over. "Forty years long
was I grieved with this generation," said God. In the wilderness they
hardened their hearts all that time. And He swore in His wrath that
they should not enter into His rest.
What a blessing for you of forty and unconverted, that He has not sworn
so terrible an oath concerning you–that still His long-suffering
lingers, still His patience bears with you, still does He say to
you–"Go, work, My son. Go work this day in My vineyard." It is sadly
late, because it has become more than natural to you to walk in the way
of sin. You will have so much to contend with in the future as the
result of the past. Putting the ship of the soul about is not such easy
work as turning a vessel by her helm–only a Divine hand can steer a
soul upon the tack of Divine Grace. You will need much Grace to conquer
those corruptions which have had forty years to take root in you! You
have a tenant in your house who is in possession, and you will find
that possession to be nine points of the law–it will be a hard
ejectment for you to effect–so hard, indeed, that only a "stronger
than he" can cast him out.
To your dying day the recollection of evil things which you heard
during these forty years of unregeneracy will stick to you. You will
hear the echoes of an old song just when you are trying to pray. Some
deed which you regret and mourn over will come to check you just when
you are about to say, "Abba, Father," with an unstammering tongue. It
is late, it is very, very late, this sixth hour, but it is not too
late! It is not too late for some of the richest enjoyments–you can
yet dine with Jesus! He can yet manifest Himself to you as He does not
to the world. You may have yet much time to serve Him.
It is not too late to be distinguished among His servants. Take John
Newton–he was called in the middle of the day, but John Newton left
his mark in God's vineyard–a mark that will never be forgotten! I
suppose Paul could not have been much less than of that age when he was
called by Sovereign Grace. No, the most of the Apostles were probably
very little short of this age when Mercy met with them–still they did
a glorious day's work. If saved by Grace in middle life, my Brother,
you must work harder! You must let the time past suffice you to have
worked the will of the flesh and now you must redeem the time, because
the days are evil. Why, a man converted at forty should go double quick
march to Heaven–there should not be a moment lost!
Work the engine at high pressure and give two strokes for every one
that might be given by younger men and younger minds. Seek, in Divine
strength, to do twice as much in the time, since you have only half the
time to do a life's work. I know you wish to win crowns for Christ.
Then be up and doing, Beloved. You are saved by Grace and by Grace
alone. You pant to honor Christ because of His free love to you–cannot
you endeavor to honor Him as much in the remnant which remains as
others do in the whole length of their life? You may, by zeal and
prudence, and discretion and perfect consecration yet serve the Master
well.
The landowner went out at the ninth hour, at three o'clock in the
afternoon. Nobody thinks of engaging day-laborers at three o'clock in
the afternoon! A day's work to be done from three till six! It shows
you that this Gospel hiring is nothing like a legal hiring–it must be
all of Grace–or a man would not think of doing such a thing. Well now,
three o'clock in the afternoon, that is from sixty to seventy. The
prime of life has gone. It is late, it is sadly late, very sadly late.
It is late because all the powers of the man are now weak. His memory
begins to fail. He thinks his judgment better than ever it was, but
probably that is only his own opinion. Most of the faculties lose their
edge in old age. He has acquired experience, but still there is no fool
like an old fool.
A man who has not been taught by Divine Grace learns very little of any
value in the school of Providence. Sixty thousand years would not make
a man wise if Divine Grace did not teach him. Now think of it, is it
not late? Here is the man–if he is converted now–what is there left
of him? He is just a candle end. He may give a little light, but it is
almost like a snuff burning in the socket. All those sixty years,
seventy years–have been spent–where? Cover it all up. Let us go
backward as Noah's sons did and cover it all up. And oh, may almighty
Grace cover it, too! The fact is terribly appalling–sixty, seventy
years spent in the service of Satan! Oh what good the man might have
done! Had he but served his God as he served the world, what good he
might have done!
He has made a fortune, has he? How rich he might have been in faith by
this time. He has built a house! Yes, but how he might have helped to
build the Church. The man has been playing at card-houses. He has been
like boys by the seashore building castles of sand which must all come
down, and must come down very soon, too, for I hear the surges of the
dread tide of Death–it is rolling in even now! Those teeth which have
fallen out, those pains and rheumatics and so on, all show that this is
not his rest. The tabernacle is beginning to crumble about the man and
the warning is loud which reminds him that he must soon be gone and
leave his wealth and his house!
And so, if this is all, in the end it will turn out that he has done
nothing–he has piled up shadows, heaped together thick clay and that
is all he has done–when he might, if he had believed in Jesus, have
done so much for God and for the souls of men! What evil habits he has
acquired! What can you ever make of this man? If he is saved, it will
be so as by fire. He is called and he shall enter Heaven, but oh, how
little can he do for the Master, and what strong corruptions will he
have to wrestle with, and what an inward conflict even till he gets to
Heaven! It is late, it is very late, but oh, blessed be God! It is not
too late!
We have had within these walls persons who have long passed the prime
of their days who have come forward and said, "We will cast in our lot
with you because the Lord is with you." We have heard their joyous
story of how the old man has become a babe, and how he that was hoary
with years has been born again into the kingdom of Christ! It is not
too late! Did the devil say so? The gate is shutting–I can hear it
grating on the hinges–but it is not shut! The sun is going down, but
he is not lost beneath the horizon yet. And if the Master calls you,
only run faster because it is so! And when you are saved, serve Him
with all your might amid strength because you have so little time to
glorify Him here on earth and short space in which to show your sense
of deep indebtedness to His surpassing love.
The day is nearly over, it has come to the eleventh hour, five o'clock!
The men have been looking at their watches to see whether it will not
soon be six. They are longing to hear the clock strike. They hope the
day's work will soon close. Look! The landlord goes out into the
marketplace among those hulking fellows who are still loitering there
and he pitches upon some and asks them, "Why have you been standing
here idle all day? Go and work! And whatever is right I will give you."
At the eleventh hour they come in–half-ashamed to come–hardly liking
the others to see them. They are ashamed to begin work so late. Still
they did steal in somewhere. And there were generous laborers who
looked over the tops of the vines and said to them, "Glad to see you,
Friends! Glad to see you, however late." There were a few, I dare say,
among the laborers, at least there are if this is the vineyard, who
would even stop their work and begin to sing and praise God to think
that their fellows had been brought in at the eleventh hour! Now the
eleventh hour must be looked upon as any period of life which is past
threescore years and ten–how late it may extend I cannot tell.
There is an authentic instance of a man converted to God at the age of
a hundred and four, during the last Irish revival, who walked some
distance to make a confession of his faith in Jesus Christ. And I
recollect a case of one converted in America by a sermon which he had
heard, I think, eighty-one years previously! He was fifteen when he
heard Mr. Flavell at the end of a discourse, instead of pronouncing the
blessing, say, "I cannot bless you. How can I bless those who do not
love the Lord Jesus Christ? 'If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ
let him be Anathema Maranatha.' " And eighty-one years or more
afterwards that solemn sentence came to the man's recollection when he
was living in America and God blessed it to his conversion!
There have been some to whom the eleventh hour has been the very hour
of death. Some, I say, but how many or how few is not for me to know.
There is one instance we know in Scripture, it was the dying thief.
There is but one. God, however, in His abundant mercy can do as He
wills to the praise of the glory of His Grace and at the eleventh hour
He can call His chosen. It is very late, it is very very, very late, it
is sorrowfully late, it is dolefully late–but it is not too late– and
if the Master calls you, come! Though an hundred years of sin should
make your feet heavy so that your steps are painfully limping–if He
calls you it is late but not too late, and therefore come!
Have you ever thought of how the thief worked for his Lord? It was not
a fine place for working, hanging on a cross, dying, just at the
eleventh hour. But he did a deal of work in the few minutes. Observe
what he did. First, he confessed Christ–he acknowledged Him to be
Lord, confessed Him before men. In the second place, he justified
Christ–"This Man has done nothing amiss." In the next place he
worshipped the Lord Jesus, calling Him, "Lord." He even began to
preach, for he rebuked his fellow sinner! He told him that he should
not revile One who was so unrighteously condemned. He offered a
petition which has become a very model of prayer–"Lord, remember me
when You come into Your kingdom."
At any rate, I wish I could say of myself what I can say of the
thief–he did all he could. I cannot say that of myself. I am afraid I
cannot say it of any of you. I do not know anything the thief could
have done on the cross which he did not do. As soon as ever he was
called, he seems to have worked in the vineyard to the utmost extent of
his ability. And so let me say to you, if you should be called at the
eleventh hour, my dear Hearer, though you are well-stricken in years
and aged, yet for Jesus Christ's sake out of great love for all the
great things which He has done for you, go your way and praise Him with
all your might!
II. My time has gone and I wanted to have shown that DISTINGUISHING
GRACE SHONE RESPLENDENTLY IN EVERY INSTANCE. Those called in the early
morning have delightful reason for admiring Sovereign Grace, for they
are spared the ills and sins of life. I must content myself, however,
by repeating concerning them the lines of Ralph Erskine–
"In hea venly choirs a question rose,
That stirred-up strife will never close–
What rank of all the ransomed race,
Owes highest praise to Sovereign Grace?
Babes there caught from womb and breast,
Claimed right to sing above the rest;
Because they found the happy shore,
They never saw nor sought before."
What distinguishing Grace is that which called us when we were young!
Here is electing love! "When Ephraim was a child, then I loved him and
called My son out of Egypt." Some of us, in time and in eternity, will
have to utter a special song of thankfulness to the love which took us
in our days of folly and simplicity and conducted us into the family of
God. It was not because we were better disposed children than others,
or because there was naturally anything good about us–we were willful,
heady and high-minded, proud, wayward and disobedient as other children
are–and yet Mercy separated us from the rest and we shall never cease
to adore its sovereignty!
Look at the Grace which calls the man at the age of twenty, when the
passions are hot, when there is strong temptation to plunge into the
vices and the so-called pleasures of life. To be delivered from the
charms of sin when the world's cheek is ruddy, when it wears its best
attire and to be taught to prefer the reproach of Christ to all the
riches of Egypt–this is mighty Grace for which God shall have our
sweetest song!
To be called of the Lord at forty, in the prime of life! This is a
wonderful instance of Divine power for worldliness is hard to overcome
and worldliness is the sin of middle age. With a family about you, with
much business, with the world eating into you as does a canker, it is a
wonder that God should, in His mercy, have visited you then and made
you a regenerate soul! You are a miracle of Divine Grace and you will
have to feel it and to praise God for it in time and eternity!
Sixty, again. "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his
spots? If so, then you who are accustomed to do evil may learn to do
well." And yet you have learned–you have had a blessed Schoolmaster
who sweetly taught you and you have learned to do well. Though your
vessel had begun to rot in the waters of the Black Sea of sin, you have
got a new Owner and you will run up a new flag and you will sail round
the Cape of Good Hope to the islands of the Blessed, in the Land of the
Hereafter!
But what shall I say of you that are called when you are aged? Ah, you
will have to love much, for you have had much forgiven. I do not know
that you may be in thankfulness a whit behind those of us who are
called in our early youth. We have much to bless God for and so have
you. We are at one extreme and you are at the other. We would love much
because we have been spared much sinning and you must love much because
you have been delivered from much sinning. Not to go through the fire
is a theme for song–but to traverse the flame and not be burned!–to
walk the furnace and to be delivered from its vehement fire! Oh, how
you should find words with which to express your gratitude!
Called early or called late. Called at midday or called at early noon,
let us together, since we have been called by Grace alone, ascribe it
all to the Lord Jesus! And moved by the mighty constraints of His love,
let us work with body, soul and spirit–work for Him till we can work
no longer–and then praise Him in the rest of Glory! I pray you,
Brethren, suffer no idleness to creep over you. If you have sought to
extend the Redeemer's kingdom, do it more. Give more, talk more of
Christ, pray more, labor more!
I often receive the kind advice, "Do less." I cannot do less. Do less?
Why, better rot altogether than live the inglorious life of doing less
than our utmost for God! We shall, none of us, I am afraid, kill
ourselves with working too hard for Jesus–it were such a blessed act
of suicide that if there is a sin that is venial, it would certainly be
that! I am not afraid that you are likely to perpetrate such an
enormity! Work for the Master! Labor for the Master! We must spend and
be spent, and wear ourselves out for Him! Make no reserve for the flesh
to fulfill the lusts of it! And oh, how happy shall we be if we may be
privileged to finish the work and hear Him say, "Well done, good and
faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord."
May the Lord bless you for Christ's sake. Amen.
[This sermon was originally titled, Early and Late, Or Horae Gratiae].
PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–Matthew 19:27-20:29.