God's Glory Our Rereward
(No. 3028)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1907.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"The glory of the LORRD shall be your rereward." Isaiah 58:8.
THE Church of God is an army marching through an enemy's territory. She
can never reckon upon a moment's peace. If she were of the world, the
world would love its own, but because true saints are not of the world,
but Christ has chosen them out of the world, therefore the world hates
them. As the Amalekites suddenly fell upon the children of Israel,
unprovoked and without giving any warning of their hostile intention,
so, not only in times of persecution, but in these apparently softer
days when the world does not use the stake and the sword, at all
seasons the world is ready to pounce upon the Church of God and to call
in its grand ally, the devil, to overthrow and destroy, as far as
possible, the militant hosts of Israel!
Every Christian, then, must be a soldier and take his share in the
battles of the Cross. We must not look upon our life as being a
pleasure-journey through a friendly land, but as a march–a march
through the very midst of foes who will dispute every foot of our way!
Now, if we thus view the Church of God as an army, it is consolatory to
know that we have a vanguard–My righteousness shall go before you." We
take our Lord Jesus Christ to be "the Lord our righteousness." He is
the Forerunner and He has gone before us, even through the River of
Death and up to the skies, that He may prepare a place for all those
who have enlisted under His standard.
Our text, however, speaks not of the vanguard, but of the "rereward."
There is always danger there, and it is comforting to the saints to
behold so glorious a shield borne in their rear by so mighty an
arm–"The Glory of the Lord shall be your rereward."
It is but little I have to say to you this evening, but may God make
that little profitable to you! We will, first of all, dwell upon the
rereward and enquire what it is which is here intended. And, secondly,
we will try to show how the Glory of the Lord brings up the rear
andprotects the saints on every side.
I. In the first place, WHAT MAY WE UNDERSTAND BY THE REREWARD?
Taking the text to refer to the Church of God as a body, we remark that
there are always some who bring up the rear. God has never left His
Church without men to stand in the front. A few choice men have always
been raised up by God and they have led the way, both in testimony and
in suffering. The race of the Prophets will never be extinct. "The
scepter," in this sense, will not depart from the members of the Church
until Christ shall come a second time. The teacher shall not be taken
out of his place, nor the candlestick be removed, nor the Bread of Life
be taken away. But the mass of the Church are rather like the body of
the army marching on and fighting well–but not attaining unto the
first three mighties.
We have, moreover, in the Church of Christ, a considerable proportion
of those who are always behind. Some of those are here tonight. You
feel yourselves to belong to the rear because you are so weak in faith.
It is a blessed thing to enjoy full assurance of faith and yet, no
doubt, there are thousands in the fold of Jesus who never reach this
attainment. It is a great pity that they should not reach it, for they
miss much happiness and much usefulness. But still–
"Thousands in the fold of Jesus,
This attainment never could boast.
To His name eternal praises,
None of these shall ever be lost.
Deeply engraved
On His hands, their names remain."
There are some who, from their natural constitution and other
circumstances, are very apt to despond. Like Mr. Fearing, they not only
go through the Slough of Despond, but, as Bunyan says, they carry a
slough of despond about with them! They are little in faith, but they
are great at foreseeing evil. They are always expecting some dreadful
ill and they cower down before a shadow. I thank God that those of you
who have faith but as a grain of mustard seed, shall not be left to
fall away–the Glory of the Lord shall gather you up with the rest of
the saints! The stragglers, the wounded, the halt, the lame–though
these cannot march with the rest as we desire, though, like Mr.
Ready-to-Halt, they have to go on crutches–yet the Glory of the Lord
shall be their shelter and protection.
Then there are some of you who are not exactly weak in the faith but,
in your humble estimate of yourselves, you put yourselves in the rear.
"I am very poor," says one, "it is but little that I can ever give.
Even if I gave two mites, as the widow did, I might almost give all my
substance in so doing. I am obscure, too, for I have no talent. I
cannot preach. I can scarcely pray in the Prayer Meeting to
edification. I hope I love the Lord and that I am one of the stones in
the walls of His Church, but I am quite a hidden one." Ah, well! Poor
though you are, despised and forgotten, the Glory of the Lord shall
secure your safety! It was said of the tribe of Dan, "They shall go
hindmost with their standards," and there must be some to be in the
rear! So, while the rich may rejoice in what God has given to them, yet
you, in your contentment with your lot, may be thankful for your
poverty and bless the name of the Lord that though you may be in the
rear, you are yet in the army–and you shall soon–as much as those in
the van, have your full share of the spoil!
Possibly there are some who get into the rear from a much more painful
cause, namely, from backsliding. I would not say a word to excuse
backsliding, for it is a dreadful thing that we should depart from our
first love, or lose the vigor of our piety. It is dangerous to get even
half a yard from the Savior's side! To live in the sun, like Milton's
angel–that is blessed living! No lack of light or warmth there! But to
turn our backs on the sun, as the descendants of Cain did of old, and
to go journeying away from Christ–this is dangerous in the extreme.
"The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways." Many men
talk of David's sin–it were well if they would remember David's
repentance and David's broken bones after he had received pardon. He
never was the same man afterwards that he was before. His voice was
hoarse and cracked. You can tell the Psalms that he wrote after his
fall, for his pen quivered as he wrote them, and yet, blessed be God,
he could say, "Although my house is not so with God; yet He has made
with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure." Even
to these falling ones, Christ is kind! Though they have wandered from
Him, His voice is not that of condemnation, but of consolation. Return,
you backsliding ones! He still acknowledges the marriage bonds. "I am
married unto you, says the Lord." Backslider, let this be some comfort
to you, if you are bewailing your backslidings. But oh, if you are not
conscious of them, or are conscious of them, but are not mourning them,
tremble, tremble, lest backsliding should become apostasy and you
should prove beyond question that you never had a sound work of Grace
in your heart!
Now, whoever it may be, in the militant host of the Lord, who is in the
rear, here is our comfort–that the Glory of the Lord shall be the
rereward! Only one or two of you can guess, in any adequate measure,
what the care of such a large Church as this is. I have sometimes felt
as Moses did when he said to the Lord, "Have I conceived all this
people? Have I begotten them, that You should say unto me, Carry them
in your bosom, as a nursing father bears the sucking child?" But here
is my consolation, "the Lord knows them that are His." And those of you
who do not always show due faith and courage–who do not advance to the
front, as we would wish in Christian service, we nevertheless commend
you to the care of our God, praying that the rear may be Divinely
preserved. We wish that you would quicken your pace, that you would
grow in Grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,
but we know that even as it is, you shall be found of Him in peace in
the day of His appearing, since your righteousness is found in Him and
you are not trusting in yourselves.
But, now, supposing the text to refer to the individual Christian–how
shall we translate it?
We will translate it in three ways. First, as relating to our
past–that which is behind us. We need a protection from the past. Now,
what is that which is behind us? There is something to rejoice in, for
God has been gracious to us, but there is very much to mourn over, for
we remember our former lusts in our ignorance, things of which we are
now ashamed. Christian, look back awhile upon those sins of yours, the
sins of your youth and your former transgressions–
sins against Law and against Gospel, sins against light and against
love, sins of omission and sins of commission. What about them? Suppose
that, like a pack of hungry wolves, they should pursue you? Suppose
they should come after you, as Pharaoh and his chariots and his
horsemen went after the children of Israel when they escaped out of
Egypt? Ah, then the Glory of the Lord shall be your rereward! Christ
and His Atonement shall come between us and our sins and He shall drown
our enemies in the Red Sea of His blood, even as he drowned Pharaoh and
all his raging hosts who pursued the chosen people! Fear not your past
sin, Christian! Tremble at the thought of it, by way of repentance, but
thank God that you shall not be called to account for it, for all your
sins were numbered on the Scapegoat's head of old and He took them and
made an end of them and carried them away forever! "Who shall lay
anything to the charge of God's elect?" As to past sin, the glorious
Atonement shall bring up the rear!
Then there are our past habits. How much of injury we still suffer from
these! A man who has been accustomed to witness scenes of vice will
frequently have most fearful pictures painted upon his eyeballs, even
when they are closed for prayer! Yes, and when the sacred hymn is going
up to Heaven, a word in it may suggest a snatch of a profane song, or
bring to the recollection even blasphemy itself! It is a sad thing to
have learned the arts of sin, to have acquired habits of passionate
temper, of pride, or covetousness, or of falsehood. We may well tremble
lest these old enemies should at last prove too much for us. We have
left them behind us–they do not lead and guide us as once they
did–but they dog our steps. The dominion of sin has been broken, but
the law of sin is still there to vex us. The tree is cut down, but the
sprouts still spring from the root and are all too vigorous, especially
at times when they have been watered by circumstances, for at the scent
of water they will bud and grow. Ah, then, we must take our bad habits
to the Lord Jesus! We must ask Him to manifest His Glory by helping us
to conquer them and we shall yet break these bonds which had become
like fetters of iron! We shall snap them as Samson of old did his green
straps and we shall be free! But, the Glory of the Lord must do it, and
we shall have to give Him all the praise!
So, the whole of the past, if you take it in any of its aspects, need
not cause the Christian tormenting sorrow, for he can believe that all
his sinful past is left with God, so that, as neither things present,
nor things to come shall be able to separate him from the love of God,
so not even things past shall be able to do it!
But again, understanding the text as referring to the individual
Believer, we may speak of the rear as signifying that part of our
nature which is most backward in yielding to the power of Divine Grace.
Brothers and Sisters, often, to will is present with us, but how to
perform that which we would, we find not! The understanding is
convinced and that leads the van. Firm affections are awakened and they
follow after. But there is a weaker passion which would, if it dared,
consent to sin–and that is this flesh of ours in which there dwells no
good thing! It is this dangerous rear, this weakest part of our nature,
which we have most cause to dread. O Friends, you know but little of
yourselves if you do not know this, that there are such weak points
about you that you might be overthrown in a moment if almighty Grace
did not preserve you! Peter is laughed at by a silly maid and he falls.
"How are the mighty fallen!" How little a thing brings an Apostle to
the level of a blasphemer! As for this rear part of our army, what
shall we do with it? It is here that God's Glory will be seen in
conquering and overcoming! "Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ," and gives us victory in the very place
where we were accustomed to say, "O wretched man that I am! Who shall
deliver me from the body of this death?" Those straggling passions
which we cannot marshal as we would, into regular order. Those
wandering thoughts. Those downward desires. That cold heart which will
not grow warm, as we would have it, but will lose its holy glow–all
these powers of ours shall be brought into subjection and sanctified by
Grace! God shall gather up the stragglers and bring the whole man safe
to perfection by the sanctifying power of the Spirit!
Once again, still understanding the individual Christian, may we not
speak of our rear as signifying the end of our days? The Glory of the
Lord shall be the rereward of our mortal history. The van was blessed,
when we looked to Christ and were lightened, and our faces were not
ashamed–
"Many days have passed since then, Many changes have we seen Yet have
been upheld till now– Who could hold us up but Thou?" But the rear of
the march of life is coming. We shall soon be up to our necks in the
cold river–the waves and billows must soon roll over us! We may desire
to be with Christ, but death, itself, never can be desirable–
"We shrink back again to life, Fond of our prison and our clay."
We long to be with Christ, for it shall be "far better" there, but that
last pinch, when soul and body shall be separated, cannot be looked
forward to without solemn awe. Oh, how sweet to think that Christ shall
bring up the rear of our life! If ever we have had His Presence, we
shall have it then! We shall–
"Sing when the death-dew lies cold on our brow, If ever we loved You,
our Jesus, 'tis now." Perhaps our last day will be our best and
brightest day and we shall be surprised to find what floods of Glory
there are around and above the floods of death! I see before me many,
very many veterans. Your gray hairs tell of your nearness to Heaven. I
trust your locks are whitened with the sunlight of Glory! Oh, be not
afraid! You shall find it a blessed thing to sleep in Jesus–and even
as you go to that last bed, you shall not tremble, for He shall be so
manifestly with you that you shall not be afraid! The Glory of the Lord
shall be your rereward and what that Glory shall be, what heart can
imagine, what tongue can tell? The Glory that excels the glory of
perfection! The Glory of being made like unto the First-Born among many
brethren! The Glory of the Well-Beloved which He had with His Father
before the world was! "The glory which you gave Me, I have given them."
Behold, then, your latter end! Oh, that our last days might be with the
righteous and our last end be like theirs! The Glory of the Lord shall
be the Christian's rereward.
II. But now, only for a minute or two, let me show you HOW THE GLORY OF
THE LORD thus, both in the case
of the whole Church of Christ and of each separate Christian, BECOMES
THE MEANS OF GRACIOUS PRESERVATION.
What is this "Glory of the Lord" which shelters the weak and preserves
the saints? May we not understand it to mean, first of all, the
glorious attributes of God? God's mercy is one of His glories. It is
His great glory, you know, that He is a God passing by iniquity,
transgression, sin and remembering not the guilt of His people. Now,
Brothers and Sisters, as to our past sins, our weaknesses and all those
other senses in which we understand the rear of our spiritual host–as
to all these, the mercy of God will glorify itself in them all!
Notwithstanding our weakness, Mercy shall find a platform for the
display of itself and where sin abounded, there shall Grace much more
abound. When you think of the greatness of your sin, think also of the
greatness of God's mercy at the same time. As Master Wilcox says, "If
you cannot keep your eye on the Cross when you are repenting, away with
your repenting!" A sense of sin which is not also attended with a
belief in God's mercy, is not an evangelical sense of sin. Oh, to know
the super abounding mercy of the loving God who delights in mercy, His
last-born, but His best-beloved attribute! He will glorify Himself by
His mercy in delivering you when you most need it.
So will He also use the glorious attribute of His Wisdom. It takes a
wise captain to conduct the rear of the army. To lead the van needs
courage and prudence, but to protect the rear often needs more wisdom
and even more courage! And God will show the wisdom of His Providence
and the fidelity of His Grace in taking care of the weakest of the host
and in preserving you, Believer, in that place where you are most in
need of preservation.
So will He also show His Power. Oh, what power it will be that will be
needed to bring any of us to Heaven! We need a God to get us there.
Nothing short of Divine strength will ever be able to preserve any of
us. So crushed and hardened, and sometimes so stung with the venom of
the old serpent, how shall we who are in the rear be kept unless the
bare arm of God is revealed? The Glory of the Lord in Mercy, Wisdom and
Power shall shine transcendently in our case!
And here, too, shall be conspicuous the Immutability of God. Beloved,
of all the attributes of God next to His Love, this is, perhaps, the
sweetest to the tried Christian, namely, His Immutability–
"Immutable His will Though dark may be my frame." You are not trusting
in a Savior who was yours yesterday, but is not faithful today, or who
will fail you tomorrow! Every word of His promise stands sure and He,
Himself, stands fast to it. How the Immutability of God will be
illustrated in those who have had a long life and borne trials all
through it, but who find, at the last, that Christ, who loved His own
which were in the world, did love them even unto the end! Yes, the
weakness, which you now discover and mourn over shall only afford an
opportunity for the faithfulness of God to reveal itself in your case!
The Glory of the Lord, in all its attributes, shall bring up the rear!
May we not also understand, besides His attributes, His Providence? The
Providence of God is part of His Glory. Thus He shows the skirts of His
royal robes among the sons of men, as He has dominion over all the
events of time. Ah, yes, you may rest assured that in all those points
in the Christian Church which are the most weak, and the most behind,
the Providence of God will be seen in bringing the entire army of God
home, safely home, victoriously home! Looking at the history of the
whole Church, it is cheering to us to see that God has never sustained
a defeat. And when His army seems to have been repulsed for a time, it
has only been drawn back to take a more wondrous leap to a yet greater
victory! One wave may recede, but the main ocean advances, the great
tide of our holy faith is coming up and as we watch wave after wave
dying upon the shore, we must not weep, or think that God is sustaining
a disappointment, for the main flood must advance and it shall, till
all the mud of idolatry and human sin, and all the sand of human
rebellion shall be covered with the silver tide of Truth and Love, and
against the rocks of eternity, the great waves of Gospel Truth shall
forever beat! Courage, my Brothers and Sisters, the Lord will bring up
the rear by His Providence, ruling and overruling, making evil produce
good and good something better–and better still in infinite
progression! Not only to the whole Church, but to you, also,
individually, shall it be so! And in due time, if you will but wait,
you shall not be disappointed, but your light shall rise in obscurity
and the days of your mourning shall be ended! The Glory of the Lord
shall thus be our rereward.
But may we not believe that the Glory of the Lord, which brings up the
rear, is the Lord Himself? After all, we cannot dissociate the Glory
from the Glorious One! God Himself we must have if we would see His
Glory! Ah, Brothers and Sisters, the wine of communion with our Father
and His Son, Jesus Christ, is the surest preservative against fear! And
especially ought we to cultivate this communion when we feel that we
are most in danger. Near to the Savior's bosom it does not matter what
we suffer! Close to God, He who is full of infirmities will overcome
them all. Whatever your besetting sin may have been, put your head upon
the Savior's bosom and that besetting sin shall not overthrow you!
Close to the Master and since His garments smell of myrrh, and aloes,
and cassia, you shall never want for perfume. Have Christ with you and
you cannot walk in darkness, however dark your way may be! Get to your
chambers. Wait upon Him in prayer. In coming down from those chambers
with your souls refreshed, say to Him, "Abide with us from morn to
eve," for you may rest assured that in this holy communion you shall
find the true protection, while they who neglect this are most apt to
slip!
And so, let me close these few words of address by entreating you
always to fly to the Glory of the Lord whenever you feel your danger
and even when you do not feel it, for it is well to be there. "Trust in
the Lord and do good–so shall you dwell in the land, and verily you
shall be fed." Trust not in man, nor put any confidence in the glory of
man. Rest not in your circumstances, nor your wealth, nor your health,
for the glory of all these shall pass away as the beauty of the flower
in the field which is soon cut down beneath the mower's scythe. Trust
in the Lord forever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength!
You sons of men, trust in your God and you shall be secure beneath the
shadow of His wings. You sinners, fly to the Savior! "Seek you the Lord
while He may be found." Look to the Cross of Jesus and put all your
dependence in His suffering and His merits–and you who have done so
already, trust more than ever to your God and to your God, alone, in
every hour of ill, and every night of grief!
The Lord bless you, for Jesus' sake! Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: LUKE 12:1-44.
In this chapter our Savior dispels the fears of His disciples
concerning temporal things, and especially their fear of persecution
and their fear of need.
Verses 1, 2. In the meantime, when there were gathered together an
innumerable multitude of people, insomuch that they trampled upon one
another, He began to say unto His disciples, first of all, Beware you
of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. For there is
nothing covered that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not
be known. What, therefore, can be the use of hypocrisy? Hypocrisy leads
a man to pretend to be what he is not. His only hope lies in not being
discovered. But, as Christ declares that "there is nothing covered that
shall not be revealed; neither
hid, that shall not be known," hypocrisy becomes insanity as well as
iniquity! Therefore, keep clear of it in every shape and form.
3-5. Therefore whatever you have spoken in darkness shall be heard in
the light; and that which you have spoken in the ear in closets shall
be proclaimed upon the housetops. And I say unto you, My friends, Be
not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that
they can do. But I will forewarn you whom you shall fear: fear Him,
which after He has killed, haspower to cast into Hell; yes, I say unto
you, Fear Him. There is nothing, comparatively, to fear in death
considered by itself. If that were the end of man, he need have little
or no fear even of God, Himself. But inasmuch as after death there is
another state which is everlasting and unchangeable, there is grave
cause for the ungodly to fear Him who, "after He has killed, has power
to cast into Hell."
6, 7. Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them
is forgotten before God? But even the very hairs of your head are all
numbered. So particular is the care of Divine Providence.
7, Fear not, therefore, you are of more value than many sparrows. And
if He counts the sparrows, and cares for them, He certainly will not
forget you!
8, 9. Also I say unto you, Whoever shall confess Me before men, Him
shall the Son of Man also confess before the angels of Go : but he that
denies Me before men shall be denied before the angels of God.Mind what
you are doing, then, you who never confess Christ before men, because,
according to the context of this passage, you are set down as having
denied Him. Christ first speaks of those who confess Him and then of
those who do not confess Him–and He describes them as virtually
denying Him. On another occasion, Christ said, "He that is not with Me
is against Me. And he that gathers not with Me scatters abroad."
Examine that attitude of yours, which you suppose to be neutral, and
see how Christ regards it–and then ask yourself whether you can be
satisfied to remain in it any longer.
10. And whoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be
forgiven him: but unto him that blasphemes against the Holy Spirit it
shall not be forgiven. What is the sin against the Holy Spirit? We do
not know and I think it is a great mercy that we do not know. I will
tell you one reason why I think it is a great mercy, and that is
because the devil is continually tempting poor distracted souls to
commit that sin. I have, within the past week, seen several persons who
have been frequently tempted to commit it. Only, happily, they did not
know what the sin against the Holy Spirit was! And, therefore, they
could not persuade themselves into the belief that they had committed
it. I have seen many people who have told me that they have committed
the unpardonable sin, and I have asked them to sit down and tell me
what that sin was, for if they could do so, I would find out something
that I did not know! In every instance I have very soon been able to
say to them, "Though I do not know what the unpardonable sin is, I am
quite certain that what you mention is not that sin, for such sin as
yours has frequently been forgiven." It is a blessing that we are left
in the dark concerning that matter! Only as I have often said to you,
do not presume upon your ignorance. This warning is something like the
notice you see put up on certain great men's estates, "Man-traps and
spring guns set here." If you go round the mansion, and say to the
owner, "If you please, Sir, will you tell me where the man-traps and
spring guns are?" He will say, "No. Why should you want to know where
they are? You keep from trespassing and then it will not matter to you
where they are." That very indistinctness about the warning is a part
of the preventive power which surrounds it! You have no right to go
trespassing there at all, so keep away from the place! And you are not
told what the unpardonable sin is, though there is a sin which is unto
death and there is a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit which shall not
be forgiven.
11, 12. And when they bring you unto the synagogues, and unto
magistrates, and powers, take you no thought how or what thing you
shall answer, or what you shall say: for the Holy Spirit shall teach
you in the same hour what you ought to say. He has often done this. If
you will read in Foxe'sBook of Martyrs, the answers given even by
unlearned, illiterate men and women who were taken quite at unawares,
and assailed by subtle questions, you will see that they often answered
in a remarkably wise way. They could not have answered better if the
questions had been before them for months! They frequently baffled
their cunning adversaries by their wisdom and sometimes by their wit,
for the Holy Spirit taught them in the same hour what they ought to
speak.
13. And one of the company said unto Him, Master, speak to my brother,
that he divide the inheritance with me. He rudely broke in upon
Christ's discourse when He was preaching upon these important matters
because he wanted the Savior to act the part of a judge in his dispute
with his brother!
14. And He said unto him, Man, who made Me a judge or a divider over
you? Some present-day minister, if this request had been made to him,
would probably have said, "Well, I may save some litigation, perhaps,
if I attend to this matter." As a general rule, Brother, you had better
mind your own business! Your Master, who was far wiser than you are,
would not entangle Himself with the affairs of this life and, usually,
true wisdom suggests that we, also, should keep ourselves apart from
them.
15-17. And He said unto them, Take heed and beware of covetousness: for
a man's life consists not in the abundance of the things which he
possesses. And He spoke a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a
certain rich man brought forth plentifully: and he thought within
himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to
bestow my fruits? This was his dialogue within himself. He might have
answered at once, "As I have more than I can use, I will give some to
the poor! Why should I need to lay up my fruits, to let them get moldy
and corrupt? There are many poor people starving at my very gates–I
will let them share in what God has so bountifully given to me." This
might have been his answer to the question, "What shall I do, because I
have no room where to bestow my fruits?" His reply, however, was a very
different one.
18, 19. And he said, This will I do: I willpull down my barns and build
greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will
say to my soul It is, "my," all through–my fruits, mybarns, my goods.
The man was eaten up with selfishness and did not recognize the fact of
his stewardship. He did not know that even his own soul did not belong
to him–he thought it did–"I will say to mysoul."
19, 20. Soul, you have much goods laid up for many years; take your
ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, You fool, this
night your soul shall be required of you: then whose shall those things
be which you have provided?"You fool." That is God's opinion of the man
who means to build bigger barns in order that he may, himself, enjoy
what is about to be taken away from him! He was a fool to be laying up
in store for others to scatter. Many a miser's heirs have lived to
ridicule him. He was the rake that gathered up a heap of gold–and they
are the shovel and fork that scatter it! They drink the old man's
health and are much obliged to him for stinting himself that they may
drink so deeply.
21, 22. So is he that lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich
toward God. And He said unto His disciples, Therefore I say unto you,
Take no thought It really means, "Make it not a matter of anxious care.
Take no inordinate thought."
22, 23. For your life, what you shall eat; neither for the body, what
you shall put on. The life is more than meat, and the body is more than
raiment.Everybody admits the truth of this saying of the Savior, though
all do not see everything that is involved in it. Therefore, as the
soul is more important than all else, look well to your soul, look more
to your life than to your food!
24. Consider the ravens.It is quite possible that some of them were
flying overhead just at that time, and that Christ pointed to them and
said, "Consider the ravens."
24, 25. For they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse
nor barn; and God feeds them: how much more are you better than the
fowls? And which of you with taking thought can add to his stature one
cubit? "You cannot lengthen your body." Or perhaps the Savior meant,
"You cannot lengthen out your life."
26. If you then are not able to do that thing which is least It really
is a matter of very slight consequence whether you are a little shorter
or taller.
26-29. Why take you thought for the rest? Consider the lilies how they
grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that
Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. If then God
so clothes the grass, which is today in the field, and tomorrow is cast
into the oven; how much more will He clothe you, O you of little faith?
And seek not you what you shall eat, or what you shall drink, neither
be you of doubtful mind. Full of carking care and anxiety about little
things or, indeed, about anything!
30. For all these things do the nations of the world seek after: and
your Father knows that you have need of these things. Therefore He
would have you so live–industriously, prudently, thriftily–that you
shall get these things and shall not waste them when you have them. But
He would not have you live in an anxious, worrying, depressed spirit,
as if you had no God, no Heavenly Father, no all-sufficient Friend–and
as if there were no all-wise Providence, and you
were left to drift about uncared for and alone. It is not so. O God of
the lilies and God of the ravens, You will be the God of Your people,
too!
31, 32. But rather seek you the Kingdom of God; and all these things
shall be added unto you. Fear not, little flock; for it is your
Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom. He may not give you
much here, but, in due time He will give you the Kingdom! He may give
to worldlings more of these secondary things–these husks, these mere
illusions, these mirages of the desert–than He gives to you–but for
you there is prepared a city that has foundations and a Kingdom that
shall never pass away! Therefore patiently wait until the appointed
time and fear not, "for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you
the Kingdom."
33, 34. Sell that you have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags
which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that fails not, where no
thief approaches, neither moth corrupts. For where your treasure is,
there will your heart also be. It is not only important to lay up that
which can truly be called treasure, but also to lay it up in the right
place–"a treasure in the heavens that fails not, where no thief
approaches, neither moth corrupts." Such treasure as that will not harm
us if we set our heart upon it and, by-and-by, in God's good time, we
and our treasure shall both be in Heaven!
35-37. Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning. And you
yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return
from the wedding; that when he comes and knocks, they may open unto him
immediately. Blessed are those servants whom the lord when he comes
shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself
and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them.
This always seems to me to be one of the most remarkable of our Lord's
utterances while He was here upon the earth. His whole life was one of
condescension, which was never more clearly manifested than it was when
He, the Lord and Master of All, took the position of Servant of all,
and washed His disciples' feet! Yet He here tells us that, if He finds
us watching when He comes again, He will once more take His place as
our servitor!
38-44. And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third
watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants. And this know,
that if the good man of the house had known what hour the thief would
come, he would have watched, and not have allowed his house to be
broken into. Be you therefore ready also: for the Son of Man comes at
an hour when you think not Then Peter said unto Him, Lord, do You speak
this parable unto us, or even to all? And the Lord said, Who, then, is
that faithful and wise steward, whom his lord shall make ruler over his
household, to give them their portion of meat in due season? Blessed is
that servant, whom his lord when he comes shall find so doing. Of a
truth I say unto you, that he will make him ruler over all that he has.