Landlord and Tenant
(No. 3021)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 3, 1907,
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"Set your house in order; for you shall die, and not live." Isaiah
38:1.
NOTWITHSTANDING that a thousand voices proclaim our mortality, we are
all to apt to put aside the contemplation of it. Since we cannot escape
from death, we endeavor to shut our eyes to it, although there is no
subject whose consideration would be more beneficial to us. Altering
one word of the poet's line, I may say–
"'Tis greatly wise to talk with our last hours." To be familiar with
the grave is prudence. To prepare for death it is well to commune with
death. A thoughtful walk in the cemetery is good for our soul's health.
As Jeremy Taylor well observes, "Since a man stands perpetually at the
door of eternity and, as did John the Almoner, every day is building
his sepulcher, and every night one day of our life is gone and passed
into the possession of death, it will concern us to take care that the
door leading to Hell does not open upon us, that we are not crushed to
ruin by the stones of our grave and that our death become not a
consignation of us to a sad eternity." The most of men prefer to
cultivate less fruitful fields and turn their thoughts and meditations
to subjects trivial for the present–and useless for the future. "O
that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would
consider their latter end!"
Knowing this general aversion to my theme, I shall not treat it in a
gloomy and heavy manner, but shall try to allure you to it by the use
of pleasant and interesting similitudes. The subject shall supply the
solemnity and I hope the metaphor will secure your interest. Forgive
me, you spiritual, if I seem too flippant–my words are not for you,
but for a class whose souls I trust you love–who cannot, as yet, bear
the more serious thoughts of wisdom unless they are clothed in parable
and picture.
OUR BODY, OUR PROPERTY, OUR FAMILY, THIS PRESENT LIFE AND ALL ITS
SURROUNDINGS ARE, IN THE TEXT, DESCRIBED AS A HOUSE. This simile is not
at all unusual either in the Old or the new Testaments. The Apostle
Paul tells us that "Moses was faithful in all his house," that is to
say, in his lifelong charge and duty. Our Lord said of the Pharisees
that they devoured widow's houses, meaning their estates. And Paul,
referring to his body, said, "We know that if our earthly house of this
tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made
with hands, eternal in the heavens." We will see what instruction we
can find in this most simple but comprehensive comparison.
I. This mortal life and its surroundings are likened to a house and the
first point of the similitude will be seen if we enquire, WHO IS THE
LANDLORD?
The first answer is that certainly we are not To all men, it may be
truthfully said, "You are not your own." We are tenants, but not
freeholders. We are mere tenants at will without a lease. The earthly
house of this tabernacle belongs to Him who built it. He who sustains
it keeps the title deeds in His own possession. Our house belongs to
God. Dear Friend, do you ever think of this? Do you remember, as a
matter of fact, that you and yours are God's property?. He created you
and created you for His own Glory. Your soul was spoken into existence
by Him. Your bodily powers were all bestowed by His hand. You are the
creature of the Almighty! In every vein, sinew and nerve of your body
there are traces of the Divine Embroiderer's skill. You are God's in
all the most secret goings and issues of your life, for you owe the
continued possession of your existence every day to Him. Your breath is
in your nostrils, but He keeps it there. He has but to will it and the
atoms composing your body, which He now keeps apart from their fellows,
would return to the bosom of the earth. You are but a walking heap of
dust and the cohesion of the various particles is maintained by the
hand of Omnipo-
tence. Let the sustaining power of God be withdrawn and your bodily
house would fall in the ruin of death and the utterly dissolution of
corruption! All that you have around you is in the same predicament,
for food and clothes, house and goods, are God's gifts to you. The
strength of hand or the nimbleness of brain that has enabled you to
accumulate wealth, or to live in comfort has all come from Him! Day by
day you are a commoner at the table of Divine bounty, a pensioner, hour
by hour, upon the Infinite Mercy of God. You have nothing and are
nothing but as God pleases! You owe all you have and all you are to
Him.
It is most useful for each of us to know what are the rights of God
towards us. Even if we do not acknowledge them, yet candor demands that
at least we hear them defined. Sad is the reflection, however, that
when we learn these rights, if we resist them, we become willful
robbers and so increase our guilt! If we will not have God to reign
over us. If, in our spirits we say, like Pharaoh, "Who is the Lord,
that we should obey His voice?" it will go harder with us at the last
than if we had never heard the claims of God proclaimed. Men and women,
how is it that God has made you and yet so many of you never think of
Him? Shall I bring against you the accusation which the Prophet of old
brought against his people? "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth:
for the Lord has spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and
they have rebelled against Me. The ox knows his owner, and the ass his
master's crib: but Israel does not know, My people do not consider."
Who among you would retain in your house a tool or a piece of furniture
which was of no use or value to you? Who among you would keep so much
as an ox or an ass if it rendered you no service? How much less would
you nurture it if, instead thereof, it did you harm–if it had a spite
against you and lifted up its heels against you?
And yet, are there not some here who have been forgetful of their
obligations to their Maker, who have never been of any service to Him,
have never praised Him, have never desired to advance His Glory? And
who, on the contrary, have even spoken high and haughty thingy things
against Him and it may be words of profanity and blasphemy? O God, how
are You ill treated in the very world which is full of Your goodness!
How do the creatures of Your hand render unto You evil for good! Your
house, which You have let out to man, is made into a castle for Your
foes, a temple for idols, a den of thieves, a nest of unclean birds!
You are ill requited at the hands of Your unworthy tenants! You Best of
beings, you Fountain of love and mercy, what do You receive from many
of Your creatures but forgetfulness and disdain?
Bear this in mind, therefore, that the house in which we dwell, in this
life, has God for its Landlord, and that we are only tenants.
II. The simile runs further. WHAT IS MAN'S LEASE?
One would imagine, from the way in which some men talk, that we were
freeholders, or at least had a lease for 999 years! The truth is, we
are but tenants at will We may possess the tenement in which our soul
now finds a house for itself, together with its appurtenances and
outhouses, for the term of 70 years and the tenure may even be
prolonged to 80 years, or even to a longer period in rare cases, but,
at no one time is the tenure altered! We always occupy from moment to
moment. Our lease is not for three, seven, 14, or 21 years, nor is it
even from day to day, or from hour to hour–but from second to second
we hold precarious possession! We are tenants at the absolute will of
God. The commencement of a day never secures the ending of it to us
alive and the striking of the clock, as the commencement of the hour,
is no guarantee that we shall hear it strike again. Every second we
hold our lives, and goods, and chattels upon the sole tenure of the
Divine Will of God! God has but to say to us, "Return, you children of
men," and we return to the dust. Flowers are not more frail, moths more
fragile, bubbles more unsubstantial, or meteors more fleeting than
man's life! What transient things we are! I said, We are, but I made a
mistake– we are not. We but begin to be and before we are, we are not!
It is God alone who can say, "I AM." None of the human race should dare
to pronounce those words!
Yet how many live as if their tenant rights of this mortal life, and
all its goods, were a fixed tenure and entailed upon themselves,
irrespective of assigns, or heirs, or superior lord of the manor or
freeholder of the soil! "Their inward thought is that their houses
shall continue forever and their dwelling places to all generations.
They call their lands after their own names." To such people as these,
the words of the Apostle James are very applicable, "Come now, you who
say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such-and-such a city, and
continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: whereas you know
not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a
vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away."
Yet how often we fall into the same error! Have not some of you, my
Friends, been laying out your plans for months and even years to come?
You have considered where you will spend the summer and where you will
live when you retire
from your business. Ah, boast not yourselves of tomorrow, much less of
summer or of autumn, for you know not what a day, or even an hour may
bring forth! O man born of dying woman, ask of God to give you, day by
day, your daily bread and let your living and your planning be after
the fashion of day by day, for when you begin to reckon for far-off
time, it looks as if you had never prayed, "So teach me to number my
days that I may apply my heart unto wisdom." O you young ones, say not,
"We will give the first and best of our days to the flesh, and offer
God the rest." You may have no remaining years to offer! You may be
consumed in the morning of your lives! Say not, you men who are in the
midst of the world's business, "We will retire soon and in the cool of
our age we will think upon the things of God." You may have no evening
of old age! Your sun may go down at noon! You may be called from the
counting house while yet the ink upon the pages of the ledger is wet
and the Bible, as yet unstudied!
Set your house in order, for your Great Landlord may serve an ejection
notice upon you and there will be no hope of resisting it, though the
wisest of physicians should seek to bar the door! Here is the writ and
these are the express words–"You shall die, and not live." Even the
most aged presume that they shall live yet longer and the traditions of
Jenkyns and of Old Parr, I doubt not, have tempted hundreds to imagine,
even when they have been verging upon 80 or 90 that they may still live
a few years longer in quiet possession of their tottering tenement
whose pillars are shaken, whose windows are darkened and whose very
foundations are decaying! We cling with dreadful tenacity to this poor
life and the little which we foolishly call our all! It were well if we
could cling with such fast hold to the life that is to come– for that,
alone, is worth clinging to since it is forever–whereas this life is
to be but for a little time even at the longest!
What a reflection it is that within a hundred years everyone in our
most crowded audiences (unless the Lord shall come), will be soundly
sleeping amid the clods of the valley–and not one of all the present
armies of men that populate our cities will be in possession of his
house and lands, or will know of anything that is done under the sun!
We shall have gone over to "the great majority." We shall be, perhaps,
remembered, perhaps forgotten, but, at any rate, we ourselves shall
mingle no more with our fellows in the market, the street, the places
of worship or the haunts of pleasure. We shall depart from sea and
land, from city and village, from earth and all that is thereon. Where
will our immortal natures be? Where will our spirits be? Shall we be
communing among the blessed harpers whose every note is bliss, or shall
we be forever gnashing our teeth in remorse among the castaways who
would not receive the mercy of God? We hold our house, then, on no time
or tenure than from moment to moment! Remember this, you dwellers in
these houses of clay!
There is this clause in the lease, which I am afraid some have never
observed, namely, that the Landlord has at all times the right to enter
and leave His own property. I thank God that some of us have yielded to
the Lord this right and now our prayer often is that He would come into
our house, search us, try us, know our ways and see if there is any
evil way in us–and lead us in the way everlasting. Time was when the
last thing we wished for was the Presence of God, when we said to Him,
"Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of Your ways." But
now, being renewed by His Spirit, we say to Him, "Abide with us."
Beloved Friend, are you always ready to open the doors of your heart to
God's inspection? Do you delight in heavenly communion? Do you
constantly invite the Lord Jesus to come in and sup with you, and you
with Him? If not, you are forgetting one great clause in your lease
and, let me also say, you are forgetting the greatest privilege that
men can enjoy beneath the stars!
It is well for me to recall to your memories that, according to our
tenure, our Great Landlord permits us to call upon Him to execute all
repairs. Our circumstances are apt to grow straitened and He it is who
gives us power to get wealth. He daily loads us with benefits. When our
bodily tabernacle is shaken, He it is who heals all our diseases. When
our sorrows and needs multiply, He it is who satisfies our mouth with
good things, so that our youth is renewed like the eagle's. It is well,
no doubt, when we are sick, to seek direction from the physician, but
it is a Christian action to resort first to Jehovah-Rophi, The Lord
That Heals Us. "Is any sick among you?" What said the Apostle? Does he
say, "Let him use no medicine," as some "Peculiar People" say? No! Does
he say, "Use medicine and nothing else," as the most of professors do?
No such thing! Does he say, "Let him lie in bed and expect his minister
to come and see him," as though ministers, elders and deacons were
Omniscient? No such thing!
"Is any sick among you? Let him call"–that is his duty–let him call
for the elders of the church." And then, as the form of medicine then
in vogue was that of anointing the body with oil, "let them pray over
him," and let them use the ordinary means, "anointing him with oil in
the name of the Lord." Have your medicine by all means, or whatever may
seem best, but, beside that, make prayeryour main confidence, for it is
the Lord that heals us! Jesus is the Beloved Physi-
cian. If we had more faith in God and resorted more often to Him by
prayer and faith, the prescriptions of the pharmacist might be more
often wise and his medicines more frequently useful. The Lord, who made
our house, best knows how to repair the tenement and He permits us to
resort to Him! When you are sick, my Friend, remember this, and
practice it.
III. Thus have we spoken of the Landlord and the lease. Now, thirdly,
we come to THE RENT THAT IS TO BE PAID.
We occupy a house which is evidently not our own and, therefore, there
must be some rent to pay. What is it? The rent that God asks of His
tenants is that they should praise Him as long as they live. "Oh!" you
say, "that is but little." I grant you that it is. It is but a
peppercorn, a mere acknowledgment, but yet there are millions who never
pay even that! They offer the Lord no thanks, no love, no service. For
the benefits they receive, they make no return, or, rather, they make
an evil recompense. The breath that He gives them is never turned to
song. The food they eat is not sanctified with gratitude. The goods
that He bestows are not tithed, nor are the first fruits of their
increase offered to the Lord. Their hearts do not love Him. Their faith
does not trust in His dear Son–their lips do not speak of Him and
magnify His glorious name. This is most unrighteous and ungenerous. For
us to praise God is not a costly or painful business. The heart that
praises God finds a sweet return in the exercise, itself. In Heaven, it
is the Heaven of perfect spirits to praise the Lord. And on earth we
are nearest Heaven when we are fullest of the praises of Jehovah! But
how ungrateful are those who are tenants in God's house and yet refuse
the little tribute which He asks of them!
The question is raised, how often ought the rent to be paid? You know,
in law, the time when the rent of a house is due always bears a
relation to the tenure upon which it is held. If a man takes a house by
the year, he pays his rent by the year. If he takes it by the quarter,
he pays by the quarter. And if we hold our house by the moment, we are
bound to pay by the moment.
So, then, it was but simple justice when David said, "I will bless the
Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth." To
live in the perpetual exercise of praise to God is, at once, the
Christian's duty and delight. "No," says one, "but we cannot do that,
we have other things to think of." But remember, when the praises of
God are not on our lips, they should be in our hearts. The incense was
in the censer even when it was not smoking–our praise should abide
with us till opportunity permits the holy fire to be applied. Besides,
I believe that our God is best praised in common things. He who mends a
shoe with a right motive is praising God as much as the seraph who
pours forth his celestial sonnet. You in your workshops, you in your
families, you on your sickbeds, you anywhere according to your
avocations–if you offer, through Jesus the Mediator, the love of your
hearts–you are paying the rent of praise unto God Most High! Oh, to be
continually doing this!
But, Brothers and Sisters, I am afraid that we are in arrears. Those of
us who have paid the most rent are still far behind! Yes, you were
grumbling this morning–that was not rendering a worthy recompense for
benefits received. Shall a living man complain? There are some who do
little else but complain. They complain of the times, of the weather,
of the government, of their families, of their trade. If, for once,
they would complain of themselves, they might have a more deserving
subject for fault-finding! The Lord is good and does good–let His name
be blessed! Let us, as His people, avow that, though He slays us, yet
we will trust in Him. And if He make us groan under His heavy hand, we
will even weep out His praises and our expiring sigh shall be but a
note of our life's Psalm which we hope to exchange full soon for the
song of the celestial host above! Praising and blessing God in life,
practically by obedience, and heartily with gratitude–this is the rent
which is due for the house in which we dwell.
Are there not some of you who have not even recognized that you belong
to God at all and who, up till now, have been paying rent and rendering
service to another master? I am often amazed in my soul at what men
will do for that black master, the devil! Why, Sirs, the devil will
sometimes summon men to one of his meetings at the street corner where
the gas is flaming, and they will cheerfully obey the summons. They
will meet in such places with companions who are rude, boisterous,
selfish, vulgar and everything else that is undesirable and call them
"jolly good fellows." If the devil would pick out some fine brave
spirits for them to meet–men of wit, genius and information–one would
not wonder so much at the readiness with which the dupes assemble, but
the congregations of Satan are usually made up of men and women of the
lowest and most degraded kind and you people know it! When they are
beckoned off to the assembly of the scorners, they go with the greatest
readiness. And what is done at this gathering of the foolish? Well,
they commune together in stupidities at which it must be hard to laugh
and, meanwhile, they pass round the cup of liquid fire out of which
they cheerfully drink and drink, and drink again, though each
successive goblet is filled with deeper damnation! These willing slaves
drink at their master's bidding though the cup makes their brain reel,
sets their heart on flame and makes them unable to keep their feet!
Yes, and when he still cries, "Drink, yes, drink abundantly," these
faithful servants swallow down the poison till they lie down like logs,
or roar like demons! They will keep putting the cup of death to their
lips till delirium tremens comes upon them and possesses them as with
Hell itself! Thousands obediently render homage to Satan by drinking
away their lives and ruining their souls.
How much further they go in serving their master than we do in
following ours! Into Hell itself they follow their accursed leader!
They pay him his revenues without arrears and yet his taxes are heavy
and his exactions are most oppressive. Why, we have seen great lords
hand all their estates over to Beelzebub! And when he has set up before
them an image in the shape of a horse with a blue ribbon, they have
bowed down and worshipped it and offered their all at his shrine! I
wish we could meet with some who would do as much for Christ as these
have done for the devil. Any kind of fashion which may rule the hour
draws a mad crowd after it. No matter how absurd or ridiculous the
mania, the worshippers of fashion cry, "These are your gods, O Israel."
Yes, Satan is marvelously well obeyed by his servants. His rent is
regularly paid and yet he is not the rightful owner and has no title to
the house of manhood! Yes, men will even run after him to offer their
homage. They will throw down their lives before his Juggernaut car of
profligacy and cast themselves beneath its wheels, while the golden
chariot of Christ, paved with love for men traverses their streets! And
they have not a word of acclamation or of praise for that Prince of
Peace. O come, you servants of Jesus, and be ashamed of this! Come and
render to your Lord your full service! Throw your hearts' enthusiasm
into your religion! Be at least as earnest for God as others are for
the devil! Be at least as self-denying and self-sacrificing as they are
who run the mad career of sin! Pay your rent to the great Landlord and
let the arrears be made up!
IV. But I must not linger. The next point to be considered is MAN'S
DUTY WITH REGARD TO THIS HOUSE OF WHICH HE IS THE TENANT.
The text says, "Set your house in order." This shows that we are not to
destroy it, nor to injure it Our body should be the temple of the Holy
Spirit. Nothing should be done by us that may injure our body, for, in
the case of the Believer, it is a precious thing, ordained to rise,
again, at the Last Day, since Chris Jesus has bought it, as well as the
soul which it contains, with His own blood! Nor are we to waste our
substance, for this is the accusation which, of old, was brought
against the unjust steward, that he had wasted his master's goods.
We are to set our house in order, that is, our own house. Some persons
are very busy setting other people's houses in order and oh, how fast
their tongues will go when they are sweeping out their neighbor's
kitchen, or dusting his cupboard! Set your own houses in order, Sirs,
before you attempt to arrange the affairs of other people!
Again, the tenant himself must do it ' 'Set your house in order." You
must not leave it to a priest. You must not ask your fellow man to
become responsible for you. You mast make personal application to Him
who can set all in order for you, even to Him who came into the world
and died for this very purpose. If you need oil for your lamps, you
must go to them that sell and buy for yourselves, for your fellow
virgins can give you none of their oil. Set your own house in order.
This is the chief business of every living man as a tenant under God.
What kind of order is my house to be set in? My conscience will help to
tell me that. An enlightened conscience tells us in what kind of order
our heart, our family and our business should be. By its teachings, we
may learn how all the departments of the house should be ordered. It
cannot be right that the body should be master over the
soul–conscience tells us that. It cannot be right that the memory
should retain only that which is evil. It cannot be right that the
affections should grovel in the mire. It cannot be right that the
judgment should put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter. Conscience
says that the heart is never right till the whole man is in
Christ–till, by a living faith, we have embraced Jesus as our full
salvation and have received the Holy Spirit as our Sanctifier. We are
never right till we are right with conscience and conscience tells us
that we are never right till we are right with God! "Set your house in
order." Obey the inward monitor, listen to the still small voice and
prepare to meet your God!
Do you ask, "Whatis God's order?"You can see by reading the 20th
chapter of the Book of Exodus what His thought of order was when He
wrote the Ten Commandments. You can learn what His order is under the
Gospel, for we read that a new Commandment has Christ given to us, that
we love one another. And yet again, "This is His commandment, that we
should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ." Dear Friend, is
your house, in this sense, right with God? If, at
this moment, you had to surrender possession, is everything ordered as
you would wish it to be? If the arrow of death should now fly through
this sanctuary and find a target in your heart at this moment, is it
all right, is it all right, IS IT ALL RIGHT, as you would wish to have
it when God's eyes shall look upon you in the Day of Judgment? What if
in a single moment we should see the heavens on a blaze and the earth
should rock beneath our feet, and the dead should rise from their
sepulchers? What if, instead of this Tabernacle and its gathered crowd,
we should now suddenly see the King, Himself, upon the Great White
Throne and hear the archangel's trumpet ringing out the notes, "Awake,
you dead, and come to judgment!" Is everything with us as we should
like to have it for the blaze of that tremendous day and the inspection
of that awful Judge? Happy is that man who can say, "I have committed
all to Christ–my body, soul and spirit– all my powers and all my
affections! I have committed all to Him by faith and prayer, so, come,
Lord Jesus, come quickly for it is all right even now." "Set your house
in order." Then conscience and God's Word will be your guides as to
what is needed.
But I am afraid that in you, my Friend, very many things need careful
attention and rearrangement Oh, that every day each of us lived a
Christ-filled life, for then we should not need to be told to set our
house in order! I, as pastor of this Church, though I trust I am not an
idler, have never been able to look upon my own work with any sort of
satisfaction. I am obliged to stand where the publican stood with the
prayer, "God be merciful to me, a sinner," upon my lips, for my work is
too vast and I am too feeble! Is there any man here who can say that he
fills his sphere to the full without an omission or transgression? If
you can say so, my Brother, I envy you, for it is not long before you
will be in Heaven! If that is not a self-righteous estimate, or a
vainglorious opinion of yourself, inasmuch as you are so meet for
Heaven, you will soon be there–depend upon that!
But, whatever there may be about us now, dear Friends, which is not
what we feel it ought to be, let the call come to each one of us at
this moment, "Set your house in order." The vain regrets in which we
sometimes indulge, we often mistake for true repentance, but let us
remember that–
"Repentance is to leave The sins we loved before, And show that we in
earnest grieve By doing so no more."
As believers in Jesus Christ, if there is anything deficient in us, if
there is anything excessive in us, if there is anything that is
contrary to the Lord's mind and will, may the Holy Spirit come and
correct it all, so that our house may be set in order!
Thus have I shown you in what manner our houses should be kept. But I
am afraid that many of your houses need a great deal of setting in
order. Some of your houses need sweeping. The dust and filth of sin are
lying all over the floors! You need the precious blood to be sprinkled,
or else if the Lord begins to sweep with the bosom of the Law of God,
it will happen, as Bunyan tells us, that the dust will be enough to
choke your prayers, or blind the eyes of your faith! May the Gospel
come and sprinkle the water of Divine Grace and then may Christ come in
and sweep your house! But you need more than sweeping–your house needs
washing. Every floor needs cleansing and there is no one but the Lord
Jesus Christ who can do this. Nothing can make you clean but His blood!
In many of your houses the windows are very filthy and the light of the
glorious Gospel cannot enter so as to bring with it an intelligent
conception of the things of God. Oh, that this may be set right! The
very drainage in some men's houses is neglected. Many a foul thing
stagnates, ferments and pollutes their souls. Ah, what is there that is
in order in the unregenerate man? To everyone in that state, the text
calls loudly, "Set your house in order." But, Sirs, unless Christ comes
to help you, it is a hopeless task! Unless Christ and His Holy Spirit
come to the rescue, your houses will remain out of order–everything
filthy and everything disarranged–and when the great King shall come
and find it so, woe unto you, woe unto you, in the day of His
appearing!
V. We shall close with the last thought, which is this, WE ARE BID TO
SET OUR HOUSE IN ORDER BECAUSE WE ARE SERVED WITH A NOTICE TO QUIT.
"Set your house in order; for you shall die, and not live."
This is not a reason for setting a house in order which bad tenants
would care to consider–they wish to leave the house in as dilapidated
a state as possible. But a just tenant desires to restore to his
landlord his property unhurt. So is it with the man who is right with
God. He wishes that when he dies, he may leave here on earth no trace
of injury done to God, but many memorials of service rendered. He does
not wish to leave the house as Satan left the poor possessed demoniac,
rending and tearing him because he was coming out of him, having great
wrath because his time was short. No, the
honest man who loves his God desires to leave everything behind him
that shall honor God and nothing that shall dishonor Him. Whitefield
used to tell a story of a young man who could not live in the house
where his old father had dwelt, because, he said, "every chair in it
smelt of piety." He was a wicked, godless, rebellious man without
Christ and he could not stay where his father's holiness would force
itself upon his memory and rebuke him. Oh, I would like to make every
chair in my house like that, so that when my boy comes into possession
of it, he will think, "Why, there my father sat to study God's Word.
And there he used to kneel in prayer. And now I have his house, I must
imitate his ways."
A dear man of God, who has now gone to Heaven, took me into his study,
one day, and said to me, "You see that spot?" "Yes." "Well, that is the
place where my dear wife used to kneel to pray and that is where, one
morning, when I came to look for her, as she did not come down to
breakfast, I found her dead." "Oh," he said, "that is holy ground!" And
so it was, for she was a very gracious woman. Oh, that we may so live
that everything we leave behind us may be like Abel's blood that cried
from the ground! May our habits and manners be such that, after our
death, everything associated with us may be perfumed with holy
memories! God make it so! God make it so! Are you sure it will be so? I
must appeal to some of you Christian people–are you not too negligent?
Are there not with you, even with you, sins against the Lord your God?
Might there not be much amiss with you if you were now called away? I
beseech you, set your house in order!
Beloved Friend in Christ, do try that everything may be in order for
your dying, and everything now prepared for your departure if it should
happen tonight. Do it for the Church's sake. So live that when the
church misses you, there shall be left behind you your gracious memory
and your holy example to inspire those who will mourn your departure.
So live that the world may miss your zealous efforts for its good. May
all be so ordered in your life that you may never lead others astray by
your example, but bequeath it as a legacy of encouragement to your
successors! Order all things well for your children's sake. They will
be pretty much what their parents were. Sovereign Grace may interpose,
but, ordinarily, the mother shapes the child's life. May your life be
such that it shall be a fair mold for your child's future existence!
Set your house in order, my dear Brothers and Sisters, even though you
are leaving it, because you are going to a better one if you are a
Believer in Christ The old clay shed will be taken down and you shall
dwell in marble halls! You shall leave the hovel for the mansion! The
traveler's tent shall be rolled up and put away in the tomb to be
exchanged for "a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."
Oh, let it not be said that you were so bad a tenant, in the first
house, that you could not be trusted with a second, but may Divine
Grace cause you so to set this house in order that you may leave it
without reluctance, and enter into the next with joy, leaving your
first house behind you without shame, in sure and certain hope of a
blessed resurrection! May you cheerfully leave the first house and
joyfully surrender the key to the Great Landlord because you know that,
go where He will in all its rooms, He will see the remembrances of His
own Grace, the marks of His own workmanship, the beauties and
adornments of His own Holy Spirit! Then, conveyed by ministering
spirits to a better country, you shall become possessors of a heritage
undefiled which fades not away!
I desire, in closing, that all of us may offer the key of our house to
the Great Landlord and acknowledge that we live on sufferance as His
tenants. A dear Brother told us, the other day, when he was speaking of
his being over 70 years of age, that his lease had run out and that he
was now living by the day. Let us each, in all things, carry out his
remark and live by the day! Let us remember that "now is our salvation
nearer than when we believed." Let us not act as if we expected to
remain long in these lowlands. It is a dreadful thing to see men who
profess to be Christians, unwilling to die! Should it be so that when
we feel ourselves ill, and likely to die, we should have a host of
matters to arrange and many regrets to express? Dear Brothers and
Sisters, begin your regrets earlier, while there is time to retrieve
the past! Regret now, and ask for Grace, now, to do all that is in you
for Him who loved you and bought you with His blood!
As for you who have no redeeming blood upon you, I do not marvel that
you live to yourselves. O you who despise Christ, I do not wonder if
you despise yourselves so much as to be the slaves of pleasure! But you
who are the elect of God, who are bought by the blood of Jesus, who are
called by His Spirit, who profess to be His people–you have nobler
things to live for! I pray you, make us not to be ashamed of you by
living as if you were mere worldlings who have their portion in this
life. Live for eternity! Live for Christ's Glory! Live to win souls!
Behave as occupiers under a Royal Owner should behave. With such a
Landlord, the best in the whole universe, be also the best of tenants
and always be mindful of the time of your removal to another land! Let
my last words remain with you, and that they may, I will quote them
from a book in which wisdom is set forth in goodly sentences.
"Gird up your mind to contemplation, trembling inhabitant of the earth.
Tenant of a hovel for a day, you are heir of the universe forever! For
neither congealing of the grave, nor gushing waters of the firmament,
Nor expansive airs of Heaven, nor dissipative fires of Gehenna, Nor
rust of rest, nor wear, nor waste, nor loss, nor chance, nor change
Shall avail to quench or overwhelm the spark of soul within you! "Look
to your soul, O man, for none can be surety for his brother: Behold,
for Heaven–or for Hell–you cannot escape from Immortality!"
Adapted from The C. H. Spurgeon Collection, Ages Software,
1.800.297.4307
PRAY THE HOLY SPIRIT WILL USE THIS SERMON TO BRING MANY TO A SAVING
KNOWLEDGE OF JESUS CHRIST.