DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, AUGUST 14, 1870,
BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"My soul desired the first ripe fruit." Micah 7:1.
THE nation of Israel had fallen into so sad and backsliding a
condition–it was not like a vine covered with fruit, but like a
vineyard after the whole vintage has been gathered–there was not to be
found a single cluster. Not one righteous man could be found, not one
to be trusted or found faithful to God. The whole state had become like
a field that has been closely reaped, in which nothing remains but the
stubble–like a vineyard that has been completely stripped, in which
there remains no vestige of fruit.
The Prophet, speaking in the name of Israel, desired the first ripe
fruits, but there were none to be had. The lesson of the text, as it
stands, would be that good men are the best fruit of a nation–they
make it worth while that the nation should exist. They are the salt
which preserves it, they are the fruit which adorns it and blesses it.
Pray we then for our country, that God will continually raise up a
righteous seed, a faithful band, who, for His name's sake, shall be a
sweet savor unto God, for whose sake He may bless the whole land.
But I mean to take our text out of its connection and use it as the
heading of a discourse upon ripeness in Divine Grace. I think we can
all use the words of Micah in another sense, when he said, "My soul
desired the first ripe fruit." We would desire not to be merely the
green blade, we desire to be the full corn in the ear. We would not
merely show forth the blossoms of repentance and the young buds of
struggling faith, but we would go on to maturity and bring forth fruit
unto perfection, to the honor and praise of Jesus Christ.
This morning, then, I speak about ripeness in Grace, maturity in the
Divine life, fruit ready to be gathered–and our first point shall be
the marks of this ripeness. The second, the causes that work together
to create this ripeness. The third, the desirability of the ripeness.
The fourth, the solemnity of the whole subject.
I. First, then, let us speak upon THE MARKS OF RIPENESS IN GRACE. Let
us begin with the mark of beauty. There is a great beauty in a fruit
tree when it is in bloom. Perhaps there is no more lovely object in all
nature than the apple blossom. But this beauty soon fades–one shower
of rain, one descent of hail, one puff of the north wind–and very soon
the blossoms fall like snow. And if they remain their full time,
speedily, indeed, in any case, they must withdraw from view.
Much loveliness adorns youthful piety. The love of his espousals, his
first love, his first zeal, all make the newborn Believer comely. Can
anything be more delightful than our first graces? Even God Himself
delights in the beauty of the blossoming Believer. "I remember you,"
says He, "the love of your espousals, when you went after Me in the
wilderness." Autumn has a more sober aspect, but still it rivals the
glory of spring. Ripe fruit has its own peculiar beauty. As the fruit
ripens, the sun tints it with surpassing loveliness and the colors
deepen till the beauty of the fruit is equal to the beauty of the
blossom, and in some respects is superior.
What a delicacy of bloom there is upon the grape, the peach, the plum,
when they have attained perfection! Nature far excels art, and all the
attempts of the modeler in wax cannot reach the marvelous blends of
color, the matchless tints of the ripe fruit, worthy of Eden before the
Fall. It is another sort of beauty altogether from that of the blossom,
yielding to the eye of the farmer, who has the care of the garden, a
fairer sight by far. The perfumed bloom yields in value to the golden
apple, even as promise is surpassed by fulfillment. The blossom is
painted by the pencil of hope, but the fruit is dyed in the hue of
enjoyment.
There is in ripe Christians the beauty of realized sanctification which
the Word of God knows by the name of "the beauty of holiness." This
consecration to God, this setting apart for His service, this watchful
avoidance of evil, this care-
ful walking in integrity, this dwelling near to God, this being made
like unto Christ–in a word, this beauty of holiness is one of the
surest emblems of maturity in Grace. You have no ripe fruit if you are
not holy.
If your passions are still not subdued, if still you are carried about
by every wind of temptation–if still, "Lo here, and lo there," will
attract you to the right hand and to the left, you have not reached to
anything like maturity– perhaps you are not even fruit unto God at
all. But where holiness is perfected in the fear of God, and the
Christian is at least striving after perfect holiness–and aiming to be
conformed to the image of Christ–one of the marks of the ripe fruit is
plainly present.
Another mark is never absent in a mature Believer–namely, the weight
which is evidenced in humility. Look at the corn in the field, it holds
its head erect while it is green, but when the ear is filled and
matured, it hangs its head in graceful humbleness. Look at your fruit
trees, how their blossoming branches shoot up towards the sky, but when
they begin to be loaded with fruit, since the riper the fruit the
greater its weight, the branch begins to bow, until it needs oftentimes
to be propped up and to be supported, lest it break away from the stem.
Weight comes with maturity, lowliness of mind is the inevitable
consequence.
Growing Christians think themselves nothing. Full-grown Christians know
that they are less than nothing. The nearer we are to Heaven in point
of sanctification, the more we mourn our infirmities, and the humbler
is our estimate of ourselves. Lightly laden vessels float high in the
water, heavy cargo sinks the boat to the water's edge. The more Grace,
the more the need of Grace is felt. He may boast of his Grace who has
none. He may talk much of his Grace who has little, but he who is rich
in Grace cries out for more, and forgets that which is behind.
When a man's inward life flows like a river, he thinks only of the
Source, and cries before his God, "All my fresh springs are in You." He
who abounds in holiness feels more than ever that in him, that is in
his flesh, there dwells no good thing. You are not ripened, my Brothers
and Sisters, while you have a high esteem of yourself. He who glories
in himself is but a babe in Christ, if indeed he is in Christ at all.
When you shall see death written on the creature, and see all your life
in Christ. When you shall perceive even your holy things to have
iniquity in them, and see all your perfectness in Him who is altogether
lovely. When you shall lie prostrate at the foot of the Throne, and
only rise to sit and reign in Him who is your All, then are you
ripening, but not till then.
Another mark of ripeness which everyone perceives in fruit, and by
which, indeed, the maturity of many fruits is tested, is tenderness.
The young green fruit is hard and stone-like. But the ripe fruit is
soft, yields to pressure, can almost be molded, retains the mark of the
finger. So is it with the mature Christian–he is noted for tenderness
of spirit. Beloved, I think if I must miss any good thing, I would give
up many of the Graces if I might possess very much tenderness of
spirit. I am persuaded that many Christians violate the delicacy of
their consciences, and there lose much of true excellence.
Do you not remember, my Brothers and Sisters, when you used to be
afraid to put one foot before another for fear you should tread in the
wrong place? I wish we always felt in that same manner. You remember
when you were afraid to open your mouth lest, perhaps, you should say
something that would grieve the Spirit? I would we were always so
self-diffident. "Open You my lips"–I am afraid to open them myself.
"Open You my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Your praise."
An extreme delicacy concerning sin should be cultivated by us all. When
the Believer can listen to a song with a las-civiousness tone and does
not feel himself indignant, let him be indignant with himself. When he
can come across sin and feel that it does not shock him as once it did,
let him be shocked to think that his conscience is being so seared. I
would give you for a prayer–that verse from Wesley's hymn–
"Quid as the twinkle of an eye,
O God, my conscience make,
Awake my heart, when sin is near.
And keep it still awake."
The sensitive plant, as soon as it is touched, begins to fold up its
leaves. Touch it again and the little branches droop, until at last it
stands like the bare poles of a vessel–all its sail of leaf is furled,
and it seems as if it would, if it could– shrink into nothing to avoid
your hand. So should you be, so should I be, tender to the touch of
sin, so as to say with the Psalmist, "Horror has taken hold upon me
because of the wicked that forsake Your Law." Such tenderness is a
prominent mark of ripeness, and it should be exhibited, not only in
relation to sin, but in other ways.
We should manifest tenderness towards the Gospel–glad to hear it,
thankful even for a little of it. Glad to eat the crumbs from the
Master's table. Tenderness towards Christ so that the heart does leap
at the sound of His name. Tenderness towards the motions of the Spirit
so as to be guided by His eye. The Spirit often, I doubt not, comes to
us and we do not perceive Him because we are heavy of hearing, we are
dull of understanding. The photographer may place his plate in the
camera, and the object to be taken may be long before it, and well
focused, too–and yet no impression may be produced. But when the plate
is made sensitive, thoroughly sensitive–then it receives the image at
once.
that your heart and mine might be sensitive to receive the impression
of the Holy Spirit so that on us there shall be printed at once the
mind and will of God! Dear Friend, bear this in your memory, and forget
not that it shall be a token of your ripeness when the hardness is
departing, when the heart of stone is being supplanted by the heart of
flesh, and when the soul yields promptly to the Presence of Christ, and
the touch of His Spirit.
Another mark of ripeness is sweetness, as well as tenderness. The
unripe fruit is sour, and perhaps it ought to be, or else we should eat
all the fruits while they were yet green. If pears and apples had the
same flavor when they are but small, as afterwards, I am sure where
there are children, very few of them would come to their full
development. It may, therefore, be in the order of Grace a fit thing
that in the youthful Christian some sharpness should be found which
will ultimately be removed.
There are certain Graces which are more martial and warlike than
others, and have their necessary uses–these we may expect to see more
in the young men than in the fathers. And they will be toned down by
experience. As we grow in Grace, we are sure to grow in charity,
sympathy, and love. We shall have greater and more intense affection
for the Person of "Him whom having not seen we love." We shall have
greater delight in the precious things of His Gospel. The doctrine
which perhaps we did not understand at first, will become marrow and
fatness to us as we advance in Grace. We shall feel that there is honey
dropping from the honeycomb in the deeper truths of our religion.
We shall, as we ripen in Grace, have greater sweetness towards our
fellow Christians. Bitter-spirited Christians may know a great deal,
but they are immature. Those who are quick to censure may be very acute
in judgment, but they are as yet very immature in heart. He who grows
in Grace remembers that he is but dust, and he therefore does not
expect his fellow Christians to be anything more. He overlooks ten
thousand of their faults, because he knows his God overlooks twenty
thousand in his own case. He does not expect perfection in the
creature, and, therefore, he is not disappointed when he does not find
it.
As he has sometimes to say of himself, "This is my infirmity," so he
often says of his Brethren, "This is their infirmity." And he does not
judge them as he once did. I know we who are young beginners in Grace
think ourselves qualified to reform the whole Christian Church. We drag
her before us and condemn her straightway. But when our virtues become
more mature, I trust we shall not be more tolerant of evil, but we
shall be more tolerant of infirmity, more hopeful for the people of
God, and certainly less arrogant in our criticisms. Sweetness towards
sinners is another sign of ripeness.
When the Christian loves the souls of men. When he feels that there is
nothing in the world which he cares for so much as endeavoring to bring
others to a knowledge of the saving Truth of God. When he can lay
himself out for sinners, bear with their ill manners, bear with
anything, so that he might but lead them to the Savior–then is the man
mature in Grace. God grant this sweetness to us all. A holy calm,
cheerfulness, patience, a walk with God, fellowship with Jesus, an
anointing from the Holy One–I put all these together–and I call them
sweetness, heavenly lusciousness, full-flavored of Christ. May this be
in you and abound.
1 hope I shall not weary you with these marks and signs. I shall not if
you can find them in yourselves. Fullness, again, is the mark of
ripeness, seen when the fruit is plumped out and arrived at its fair
and full proportions. The man in Christ Jesus has a fullness of Grace.
As he advances in the Divine life, all the Graces which were in him at
his new birth are strengthened and revealed. I suppose that in the
newly formed ear of wheat all the kernels are present, but they are not
yet manifested. As the ear advances to maturity these grains begin to
solidify and become more full.
So with the Believer. There is repentance in him, but not such
repentance as he will have as he sees more the love of Christ in
pardoning his sin. There is faith in him, certainly, but not such faith
as he shall have when afterwards he shall boldly declare, "I know whom
I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I
have committed to Him." There is joy in him at the very first, but not
the joy which he will possess when he will rejoice in the Lord always,
and yet again rejoice. Experience deepens that which was there before.
Young Christians have the first draughts, the outline of the image of
Christ, but as they grow in Grace there comes the filling up, the
coloring, the laying on of the deeper tints, the bringing out of the
whole picture. This it is to grow mature when we know whom we have
believed by acquaintance with Him, when we know sin by having struggled
with it, when we know the faithfulness of God by having proved it, when
we know the preciousness of the promise by having received it, and
having it fulfilled in our own souls–this it is to be a ripe
Christian, to be full of Grace and Truth like our Master.
Only one other mark of ripeness, and a very sure one, is a loose hold
of earth. Ripe fruit soon parts from the bough. You shake the tree and
the ripest apples fall. If you wish to eat fresh fruit you put out your
hand to pluck it, and if it comes off with great difficulty you feel
you had better leave it alone a little longer. But when it drops into
your hand, quite ready to be withdrawn from the branch, you know it to
be in good condition.
When, like Paul, we can say, "I am ready to depart," when we set loose
all earthly things, oh, then it is that we are ripe for Heaven! You
should measure your state of heart by your adhesiveness, or your
resignation in reference to the things of this world. You have some
comforts here, some of you have money, and you look upon it, and you
feel, "it were hard to part with this"–this is green fruit. When your
Grace is mature, you will feel that though God should give you even
greater abundance of this world, you are still an exile longing for the
better land.
"Whom have I in Heaven but You? There is none upon earth that I desire
beside You." This is the mature Believer's question. His song often is
—
"My heart is with Him on His Throne,
And ill can brook delay;
Each moment listening for the voice,
'Rise up and come away.'"
It is a sure token of ripeness when you are standing on tiptoe, with
your wings outspread, ready for flight. When no chain any longer binds
you further to earth. When your love to things below is subordinate to
your longing for the joys Above. Oh, it is sweet to sing with Dr.
Watts–
"Father, I long, I faint to see
The place of Your abode;
I'd leave Your earthly courts, and flee
Up to Your seat, my God."
When we get to this in our very hearts, we are getting ripe, and we
shall soon be gathered. The Master will not let His ripe fruit hang
long on the tree. Thus I have given you the marks of ripeness.
II. Briefly, Brethren, let us notice THE CAUSES OF THIS RIPENESS. So
gracious a result must have a gracious cause. The first cause of
ripeness in Grace is the inward working of the sap. The fruit could
never be ripe in its raw state were it taken away from the bough.
Outward agencies alone may produce rottenness, but not ripeness. Sun,
shower, whatnot, all would fail–it is the vital sap within the tree
that perfects the fruit. It is especially so in Grace.
Dear Brothers and Sisters, are you one with Christ? Are you sure you
are? Are you sure your profession is connected with vital godliness? Is
Jesus Christ formed within you? Do you abide in Him? If not, you need
not think about maturity in Grace–you had need to do your first works
and repent–and turn unto Him. Everything between Hell and Heaven which
denotes salvation is the work of the Spirit of God, and the work of the
Grace of Jesus. You not only cannot begin to live the Christian life,
but you cannot continue in it except as the Holy Spirit enables you.
That blessed Spirit, flowing to us from Christ–as He is the Creator of
the first blossom–so He is the Producer of the fruit, and is the
Ripener of it until it is gathered into the heavenly garner. Your
sacraments, your attendance at a place of worship, your outward bowings
of the knee in prayer–these are all vanity and less than
nothing–unless there is this vital sap of the inward, spiritual Grace.
When the Truth of God is present in the hidden part, outer influences
help. Fruit is ripened by the sun. His beams impart or produce in the
fruit its perfectness of flavor. Sunless skies cause tasteless fruit.
How sweetly Christians grow when they walk in the light of God's
Countenance! What a ripening influence the love of Jesus Christ has on
the soul! When the love of God is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy
Spirit, how rapidly the Christian advances! I believe we ripen in Grace
more in ten minutes when we live near to God than we might do in ten
years of absence from His Presence.
Some fruit on a tree will not ripen fast, it is shielded from the sun.
We have the cottagers pluck off the leaves from their vines in our
chilly climate in order to let the sun get at the vine, and bring out
the color and ripeness of the clusters. Even thus the great Husbandman
takes away many of the leaves of worldly comfort from us, that the
comfort of His own dear Presence may come at us, and ripen us for
Himself. We cannot have too much joy in the Lord, we cannot get too
near to Him. We may well sing–
"When will You come unto me, Lord? O come, my Lord, most dear! Come
near, come nearer, nearer still, I'm blessed when You are near."
The joy of the Lord is your strength, and the joy of the Lord is your
perfectness.
Still, Brethren, the fruit is no doubt equally ripened, though not as
evidently so, by the shower and by the dew. All heat and no moisture,
and there must be scarcely any fruit. So the dew of God's Spirit
falling upon us, the constant shower of Grace visiting us, and what if
I add, even the trials and troubles of life, which are like showers to
us–all these teach us by experience, and by experience we ripen for
the skies. Some fruit I have heard of, especially the sycamore fig,
never will ripen except it is bruised.
It was the trade of Amos to be a bruiser of sycamore figs. They were
struck with a long staff, and then after being wounded, they sweetened.
How like so many of us! How many, many of us seem as if we never would
be sweet till first we have been dipped in bitterness–never would be
perfected till we have been smitten! We may trace many of our sharp
trials, our bereavements and our bodily pains to the fact that we are
such sour fruit. Nothing will ripen us but heavy blows. Blessed be the
Lord that He does not spare us. We would be ripe even if we were struck
again and again. We cannot be content to continue in our sourness and
immaturity–therefore, we meekly bless Him that He will strike us and
make us ripe.
One idea I would correct before I pass from this–it is the notion that
ripeness in Grace is the necessary result of age. It is not so at all.
Little children have been ripe for Glory! Yes, there have been
authentic cases of their ripeness for Heaven even at three years of
age–strange things dying babes have said of Christ–and deeply
experimental things, too. "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings"
the Lord not only brings childlike praise, but He has "perfected
praise," or, as David has it, "You have ordained strength because of
Your enemies." "Many an aged Christian is not an experienced Christian,
for his experience–though it may be the experience of a Christian–may
not have been Christian experience of an advanced kind.
An old sailor who has never left the river is not an experienced
mariner. An old soldier who never saw a battle is no veteran. Remember
it is in the kingdom of God very much as it is with God Himself, one
day may be as a thousand years. God can, as Solomon tells us, give
subtlety to the simple and teach the young man knowledge and
discretion. Years with Grace will produce greater maturity, but what I
want to say is that years without Divine Grace will produce no such
maturity. The mere lapse of time will not advance us in the Divine
life. We do not ripen necessarily because our years fulfill their
tale–gray hairs and great Grace are not inseparable companions.
Time may be wasted as well as improved. We may be petrified rather than
perfected by the flow of years. Here it may be well to note that there
is no reason why a young Christian should not make great advance
towards this maturity, even while young. The Lord's Grace is
independent of time and age. The Holy Spirit is not limited by youth,
nor restrained by fewness of days. Young Samuel may excel aged Eli. A
holy babe is riper than a backsliding man. Timothy was more mature than
Diotrephes.
Jesus can lead you, my youthful Brothers and Sisters, to high degrees
of fellowship with Himself. He can make you to be a blessing even while
yet you are young. I pray you aspire to the nearest place to Jesus, and
like young John, lie in the Master's bosom. Truly, the aged have the
help of experience, and in any case they deserve our reverent esteem.
But let neither old nor young imagine that the merely natural fact of
age has any influence in the spiritual life. God's work is the same in
old and young, and owes nothing to the merely natural vigor of youth,
or equally natural prudence of age.
III. Thus we have given you the causes of ripeness. Briefly let us show
you THE DESIRABILITY OF RIPENESS IN GRACE. It is necessary to dwell on
this head because many Christians appear to think that if they are just
Believers it is enough. We do not in business think it enough if we
barely escape bankruptcy. A man does not say, if his dear child has
been ill in bed for years that it is quite enough so long as the child
is alive.
We do not think that of our own bodies, that so long as we can breathe
it is enough. If anyone were dragged out of the Serpentine and life was
just in him, we should not feel it sufficient to discover the vital
spark and there leave it. No, we pursue the processes of resuscitation
till the person is perfectly restored. To be just alive as a Christian
is horrid work. It is a poor state to be in to be always trying to see
whether we are alive by putting the looking glass of evidences to the
lips to see if there is just a trace of gracious vapor on the surface.
It is a dolorous thing to be always groaning–
"It is a point I long to know,
Oft it causes anxious thought,
Do I love the Lord or no?
Am I His, or am I not?"
Yet too many are content to continue in this ignominious condition.
Brethren, it is desirable that you should get out of it, and come to
ripeness in Grace by God's Spirit, for, first, ultimate ripeness is an
index of the health of your soul. The fruit which under proper
circumstances does not ripen is not a good fruit–it must be an
unwholesome production. Your soul can surely not be as it should be if
it does not ripen under the influence of God's love and the work of His
Grace. The gardener's reward is the ripe fruit. You desire that Christ
should see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied–do you think He
will find that satisfaction in sour grapes?
Is He to find His recompense in griping apples? No, Sir. The gardener
wants the mature productions of the soil and he does not count that he
has a return for his labor till he gathers ripe fruit. Let the Redeemer
find ripe fruit in you. Say with the spouse, "Let my Beloved come into
His garden, and eat His pleasant fruits." Endeavor to imitate her when
she said, "At our gates are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old,
which I have laid up for You, O Beloved." Present yourself to Him, and
may He present you to the Father made meet to be partakers of the
inheritance of the saints in light!
It is the ripe fruit which proves the excellence of the tree. The tree
may bear a name in very good repute, but if the fruit never ripens,
very soon the gardener will remove it from the orchard. The Church's
repute among wise men is gained not from her raw and green members, but
from her ripe Believers–these are they by whose steadfast holiness
those whose verdict is worth the having will be ruled. I would have men
compelled to own that the Church is a goodly vine and her fruit most
pleasant to the taste.
To break the metaphor, the Church wants mature Christians very greatly,
and especially when there are many fresh converts added to it. New
converts furnish impetus to the Church, but her backbone and substance
must, under God, lie with the mature members. We want mature Christians
in the army of Christ to play the part of veterans, to inspire the rest
with coolness, courage, and steadfastness. For if the whole army is
made up of raw recruits the tendency will be for them to waver when the
onslaught is fiercer than usual.
The old guard, the men who have breathed smoke and eaten fire before,
do not waver when the battle rages like a tempest–they can die but
they cannot surrender. When they hear the cry of, "Forward," they may
not rush to the front so nimbly as the younger soldiers, but they drag
up the heavy artillery and their advance, once made, is secure. They do
not reel when the shots fly thick, but still hold their own, for they
remember former fights when Jehovah covered their heads.
The Church wants in these days of flimsiness and timeserving, more
decided, thorough-going, well-instructed, and confirmed Believers. We
are assailed by all sorts of new doctrines. The old faith is attacked
by so-called reformers who would reform it all away. I expect to hear
tidings of some new doctrine once a week. So often as the moon changes,
some "prophet" or other is moved to propound a new theory, and believe
me, he will contend more valiantly for his novelty than ever he did for
the Gospel! The discoverer thinks himself a modern Luther–and of his
doctrine he thinks as much as David of Goliath's sword–"There is none
like it."
As Martin Luther said of certain men in his day, these inventors of new
doctrines stare at their discoveries like a cow at a new gate–as if
there were nothing else in all the world but the one thing for them to
stare at. We are all expected to go mad for their fashions, and march
to their piping. But do we give place?–no, not for an hour! They may
muster a troop of raw recruits, and lead them where they would–but for
confirmed Believers they sound their bugles in vain. Children run after
every new toy. Any little performance in the street, and the boys are
all agog, gaping at it.
But their fathers have work to do abroad, and their mothers have other
matters at home. Your drum and whistle will not draw them out. For the
solidity of the Church, for her steadfastness in the faith, for her
defense against the constantly recurring attacks of heretics and
infidels. For her permanent advance and the seizing of fresh provinces
for Christ
we want not only your young, hot bloods, which may God always send to
us, for they are of immense service and we cannot do without them. But
we need also the cool, steady, well-disciplined, deeply-experienced
hearts of men who know by experience the Truth of God. Those that hold
fast what they have learned in the school of Christ. May the Lord our
God, therefore, send us many such. They are wanted.
IV. And now I shall close by calling your attention to THE GREAT
SOLEMNITY OF THE SUBJECT. We have
tried to treat it pleasantly, and to instruct after the Master's
example by parables, but there is much of weight here, much of deep and
solemn weight. The first is to me, to you, professor of the faith of
Christ, a solemn question–am I ripening?
I remember when a child, seeing on the mantel a stone apple,
wonderfully like an apple, too, and very well colored. I saw that apple
years after, but it was no riper. It had been in unfavorable
circumstances for softening and sweetening, if it ever would have
become mellow. But I do not think if the sun of the Equator had shone
on it, or if the dews of Hermon had fallen on it, it would ever have
been fit to be brought to table. Its hard marble substance would have
broken a giant's teeth.
It was a hypocritical professor, a hard-hearted mocker of little
children, a mere mimic of God's fruits. There are Church members who
used to be unkind, covetous, censorious, bad-tempered,
egotistical–everything that was hard and stony–are they so now? Have
they not mellowed with the lapse of years? No, they are worse if
anything–very dogs in the house for snapping and snarling, rending and
devouring. They are great men at hewing down the carved work of the
sanctuary with their axes, or at filling up wells and marring good
pieces of land with stones. When the devil wants a stone to fling at a
minister he is sure to use one of them.
Well, now, are these people Christians at all? Are they? Let your
senses exercise themselves. I leave you each one to judge. If these are
extreme cases, let me ask–are there not many in whom ripeness is
certainly not very apparent? No growing downwards in humility, no
growing upwards in fellowship with God, no doing more, no giving more,
no loving more, no praying more, no praising more, no sympathizing
more. Are you, then, a fruit unto God at all? Solemn question! I put it
to myself as in the sight of God, and I ask you to do the same to
yourselves.
Another question also rises up. There is constantly going on in every
man, specially in every professed Christian, some process or other. And
I believe that one of two processes will go on in us–the one is
ripening, the other is rotting. Now rotting and ripening are
exceedingly like each other in appearance up to a certain stage. You
will sometimes find upon your tree a fruit which seems perfectly ripe
and has all the signs of ripeness a month before the proper time,
outstripping thus all the other fruit.
You must not think it is ripe. Cut it open, there is a worm inside.
That noxious worm is to all appearances producing the same effect as
the blessed sun and dew. So the worm of secret sin will eat out the
heart of a professor, and yet it will outwardly produce in him the same
quality of speech, the same apparent sanctity of life which the Holy
Spirit truly produces in a real Christian–but still the fair outside
conceals a foul interior. The whitewashed sepulcher is full of decay.
That fruit which mimics ripeness is rotten. Leave it alone, and it will
soon be a thing fit only for the dunghill.
My dear Friends, I have lived long enough, young as I am, to have seen
some turn out to be very rotten hypocrites, though once they were in
general esteem as more than ordinarily good men. I am sure we have all
admired and loved persons who after awhile have turned out to be
utterly unworthy. They looked the more ripe because they were rotten–
they were obliged to try and look like holy men because they feared
that their real unholiness would be found out.
Just as some failing merchants make all the greater show to conceal
their insolvency–you will rot if you do not ripen, depend on it. He
that in the Church of God does not grow more heavenly will become more
devilish. It is a hard thing to be in the hot house of an earnest
Church without growing more rank if you do not grow more fruitful. Mind
this, and God give you to grow in Grace and in the knowledge of our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
One other reflection, and a very solemn one it is. While good fruits
ripen, evil plants ripen, too. While the wheat ripens for the harvest,
the tares ripen, also. They may grow together, and ripen together, but
they will not be housed together. Dear Hearers, some of you have been
in this place now for years, and you are not converted. Well, you are
ripening, you cannot help that. Even weeds and tares come to maturity.
"Let both grow together till the harvest."
Look at these galleries and this vast area. I see before me three great
fields of corn and tares. You are mingled while you grow. "Let both
grow together till the harvest," that is the ripening and the dividing
time. You are all growing, all
ripening. Then, when all are ripe in the time of harvest, He will say
to the reapers, "Gather together first the tares, bind them in bundles
to burn them. Gather the wheat into My barn."
O Sinner, your unbelief is ripening and it will ripen into despair!
Your enmity to God is ripening and it will ripen into everlasting
rebellion against Him. Even now your heart grows harder and more
stubborn, and your death in sin becomes more hopeless every hour you
live. Remember there shall be no hope that your character will undergo
improvement in another world. Then shall be fulfilled the saying which
is written, "He that is filthy, let him be filthy still."
Forever and forever the processes which ripen sin will continue to
operate on condemned spirits, "where their worm dies not, and their
fire is not quenched." God grant you Grace to believe in Jesus Christ
NOW–that you may receive the new nature–and having received it, may
grow up into ripeness, so that God may be glorified. May we all be
housed in the garner of ripe fruit in the King's own Palace above! Amen
and Amen.
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The Profit Of Godliness In The Life To Come