Secret Sins Driven Out By Stinging Hornets
DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, JANUARY 28, 1866,
BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"Moreover the Lord your God will send the hornet among them, until
those who are left, who hide themselves from you, are destroyed."
Deuteronomy 7:20.
LET us spiritualize the story of the conquest of Canaan by the children
of Israel. Canaan was given to Abraham and to his seed by a covenant of
salt. Our body, soul, and spirit are given to Christ Jesus to be His
portion and His heritage– and the newborn principle within us which
represents the seed of Israel is to conquer the whole of our manhood
for Christ that He may have possession of it in all its powers and
passions, parts and faculties. When our Lord Jesus Christ died, He died
not only for our souls but also for our bodies–He did not purchase a
right to a part of us only but to the entire man. He contemplated in
His passion the sanctification of us wholly–spirit, soul, and
body–that in this triple kingdom He Himself might reign supreme
without a rival.
It is the business of the newborn nature which God has given to the
regenerate to assert the rights of the Lord Jesus Christ. "My Soul, so
far as you are a child of God, you must conquer all the rest of
yourself which yet remains unblest. You must subdue all your powers and
passions to the silver scepter of Jesus' gracious reign, and you must
never be satisfied till He who is the King by purchase becomes also the
King by gracious coronation, and reigns in you supreme."
Although Israel had Canaan by right, the Jebusites and eight mighty
nations had it in possession. And alas, we are made painfully to feel
that though Christ has a right to us and He alone should reign in our
mortal bodies, yet sin has a dwelling place in us! Those old sins which
were born with us and seem as if they will never die till we,
ourselves, are wrapped in our winding sheets, have entered into us and
will dwell in us. I may say of our nature what was said in Egypt during
the plague of frogs: "Behold these filthy things have come up into our
chambers and into our ovens, and our kneading troughs."
There is no part of our heart too hot or too sacred for sin to intrude
into it. The whole head is sick and the whole heart is faint–from the
sole of the foot even to the head–naturally–there is nothing but
wounds and bruises and putrefying sores. Sin has entrenched itself in
our nature and it is not to be cast out by our mere talking about it
nor by our best resolutions. Our sins have chariots of iron, as those
of us know who have to contend with them, and their cities are walled
up to Heaven their entrenchments are so strong! Our sins have so worked
themselves into our flesh that our flesh cries out, "Spare them!"
"Surely the bitterness of death is past," said Agag when he came
delicately before Samuel. And thus our sins come so delicately to us,
assume such pleasant shapes, and are so congenial, that something
whispers, "Let them live!" It is hard to slay them–so difficult to cut
them up root and branch, for they are in possession–and the new nature
is but a babe! "But the old nature is the old man, and it is a very
unequal fight between a babe and an old man!" The new nature has just
emerged into an atmosphere which is not congenial with it, while the
old nature has everything to help it–the devil from beneath, the world
from without, and even the cares of business, of life–all seem to act
as allies to the old nature.
Meanwhile the new nature has to fight alone. If the Eternal Spirit were
not our helper, and if He who is the Father of our new nature were not
also its support and its succor, long ago it would have died and been
utterly cut off by the hosts of its foes! Christ and holiness have a
right to us, but sin is in possession.
What then, Beloved? Why this–since sin has no right to any part of us,
we go about a good and legal warfare when we seek, in the name of God,
to drive it out! O my Body, you are a member of Christ! Shall I take
you and subjugate you to the Prince of Darkness? O my Soul, Christ has
suffered for your sins and redeemed you with His most precious blood!
Shall I suffer your memory to become a storehouse of evil, or your
passions to become firebrands of iniquity? Shall I surrender my
judgment to be perverted by error, or my will to be led in fetters of
iniquity?
No, my Soul, you are Christ's, and sin has no right to you. Sin shall
not have dominion over us, for we are not under Law but under Grace.
Christ has bought us and paid for us! God has willed us over to Christ.
We belong to Him! We are His portion and His reward. Sin has no legal
right, then, but it has possession–and you know that is nine points of
the law. But we will dispute the nine points! We will bring the one
grand point–that God, the Judge of all, has decided that the
blood-bought belong to Christ! And we will fight it out even to the
death against these, our sins!
We are told if we read this chapter in a spiritual sense that we must
in no way suffer any kind or sort of truce with sin. I believe that
many Believers–I hope they are Believers–have given up warring with a
part of their sins. They are not drunkards, they are not thieves. They
are not given to uncleanness of walk or language. But theirs may be a
hasty temper and they do not try to subdue that. They think that that
is constitutional, and they plead for it as though it must be spared!
This one tribe–these Jebusites–must be spared according to their
sinful talk.
But oh, Beloved, I have no more right as a Christian to suffer bad
temper to dwell in me than I have to suffer the devil himself to dwell
there! I know it has been said very often that Divine Grace is often
grafted on a crab tree stock. So it is. But in this spiritual husbandry
the graft will influence all below as well as that which is above it.
What is the fruit of it? Is it a crab tree? No! The fruit does not come
from the crab tree, but from the better nature! And though I am grafted
upon a crab tree, yet my fruit must partake of the new nature, and I
must bring forth sweet fruit.
Some people think–or perhaps they may not know it–that they are
naturally troubled with pride, that they have naturally a high spirit,
or a haughty temper. And when they are told of it they grow rough with
whomever dares to mention it! And they think this is not a sin. But,
oh, Beloved, pride in a Christian is one of the most loathsome vices!
What can there be in you and in me to be proud of? Owing all we have to
the gift of God–having nothing but what He gives us, and going back to
our own poverty unless God keeps us–how dare we lift up our head?
God smote Nebuchadnezzar and made him go and eat grass like the ox, and
his hair grew like eagles' feathers, and his nails like birds
claws–all because of his pride! And some of God's dear children have
been suffered to make dreadful falls of it, and all because they were
lifted up and said, "I shall never be moved, my mountain stands firm."
We must beware of these sins and not make a truce or parley with them!
I must not say of any one sin, "I cannot help it, and therefore I will
not contend with it."
Beloved, down with them! Down with them all! In the name of God we must
destroy them, or else they will destroy us! I may say of our sins what
a Scotch officer said to his soldiers when taken in an ill position.
Said he, "My lads, there are the enemy! Kill them, or they will kill
you!" And so must I say of all sins. There they are! Destroy them, or
they will destroy you! Your only way of entering into eternal life is
by being more than a conqueror through Him who has loved you. You know
how it is written, "To him that overcomes will I give to eat of the
hidden manna," but to such only. "Be not overcome of evil, but overcome
evil with good."
And as we are not, thus, to excuse some sins and permit them to live,
so, above all, we must not fall into a dispirited state of mind and
suppose we never can drive sins out. I do not think we shall ever be
perfect in this life, but how near to perfection a Christian may come
is a question which I should not like to discuss in words, but prefer
endeavoring to find out in practice. How much a Believer may be like
Christ I will not venture to affirm, but certainly there have been some
men upon earth of whom we might say, without exaggeration, that you
might take them for an example, for their Master seemed to live again
in them.
There is no need that you should always give way to pride, or sloth, or
covetousness, or any other form of sin. You are able to overcome
them–not in your own strength–the weakest of them would be too much
for you in that. But you may overcome them through the blood of the
Lamb! "This is the victory which overcomes the world, even our faith,"
and our faith will be able to subdue these sins. Just as faith of old
put to flight the armies of the aliens, so it can even to this day. Do
not, then, dear Friends, ask, "How shall I dispossess them, for they
are greater and mightier than I?" Go to the strong for strength and
wait humbly upon God, and He, the mighty God of Jacob, will surely come
to the rescue and you shall have to sing of victory through His Grace!
There is a word of encouragement given in the chapter to those who have
a tendency to doubt in this matter. Israel was reminded that God
brought them out of Egypt. He delivered them from the house of bondage.
And you are reminded, dear Friends, that you are saved! Christ has done
a greater work for you than remains to be accomplished in you. To bear
the weight of your sins and to break the iron yoke of spiritual bondage
from off your necks required that
Christ should die! And that being done, it is, comparatively, but a
light work to deliver you from indwelling sin. The greater work is
done!
Jehovah became Man in human flesh. He lived on earth. God, the Word,
was made flesh and dwelt among us, and in due time stooped, in His
obedience, even to death, the death of the Cross! All your sins have
been destroyed by Christ and there is no condemnation for you to dread
since Christ has died. You are forgiven! The yoke is snatched from off
your shoulders! You are made free by the Son, and you are free, indeed!
You are in the wilderness, it is true, but you have come through the
Red Sea where your sins have been drowned. Your enemies, your old sins,
you shall see no more! The manna falls about your camp. The fiery,
cloudy pillar leads you through the wilderness.
And since you have seen what God has done, will you be afraid as to the
future? Courage, courage! He never begins without intending to finish.
It shall never be said of Him, "This man began to build, but was not
able to complete the structure." Courage, courage! He has not brought
you out of Egypt that you may be destroyed. What would the heathen say
concerning your God, if, after all, you should fall and perish? You
shall win the day! You shall have every inch of the promised land–only
be strong and be very courageous–for the Lord will surely drive out
your sins and take your body, soul, and spirit as a consecrated and
holy possession forever.
But there is a notion among some Christians who are but little
instructed, and who, knowing nothing of experience, that sanctification
is an instantaneous work. There are some who think that the moment they
believe in Jesus they shall never be troubled with any sin again,
whereas, it is then that the battle begins! The moment sin is forgiven
it ceases to be my friend and becomes my deadly foe. When the guilt of
sin is gone then the power of sin becomes obnoxious and we begin to
strive against it. Every now and then we hear of friends who cannot
understand my teaching on this point. They say they do not feel any
sort of uprising sin within themselves.
Oh, Beloved, I wish you did! For I am afraid you know nothing of the
Gospel life if you do not. I will not give a penny for your religion if
it has no inward conflict. Even virtuous heathens have got farther than
that–for some of them have written that they felt themselves to be as
two men contending or fighting–and surely Christians have got farther
still, or ought to have! This, I know, be it what it may with you–I
have to fight every day to get but one inch nearer to Heaven! And I
feel I will be wrestling at the last moment–that I shall have a
scuffle upon Jordan's brink with my corruptions.
Remember how John Knox had it! He had fought with men–I may say he had
fought with beasts at Ephesus–and yet at his last expiring moments he
had the sternest struggle he had ever known with self-righteousness.
You would have thought, "Surely John Knox could not be self-righteous!"
The man who had denounced all trusting in good works was yet vexed with
the very same thing he had denounced. And so it will be with you. No
matter how near you live to God, or how closely you follow Christ, you
will have more or less of evil to contend with still. No, I must say
the more holy you get, the more you will have to fight against sin. The
whiter a garment becomes, the more easily is a spot seen–and the more
you get like Christ the more you will detect how unlike Him you are!
A spiritual sense will be quickened so that you will discover that to
be sin which you did not think to be evil. And you will often feel,
when you are most progressing in Grace, you are not growing at all, or
if so, certainly it seems to be downward. When I think myself most
unholy, I am most holy–and when I bemoan my own sinfulness, then am I
most likely to be accepted of God! It is best to think little of one's
self. But whether you do or not, take this for granted–you will have
to drive out your sins little by little–they will not all be cast out
at once–it will be a life's work. And you will never have to take off
your armor or sheath your sword till you go to the warrior's bed and
rest in the grave.
I now wish to call your attention specially to the verse before us. It
appears that after a long conflict with Canaan, some of these old
inhabitants still existed. They hid themselves in caves, and so on–but
they were to be fetched out by a very singular means–hornets. These
hornets were to discover them and bring them out–perhaps sting them to
death, or, if not, make them come out to be slain by the children of
Israel.
Three things are to be noticed, then, this morning. The first is sins
which are left and saved in us–even in us who have for many years been
followers of Christ. Secondly, a singular means of destroying them. And
then, thirdly, a suggestive lesson for us all–teaching us to examine
our own hearts for these secret sins.
I. And first, dear Friends, SINS WHICH ARE LEFT AND HIDDEN. John Bunyan
very wisely describes the town of Mansoul after it had been taken by
Prince Immanuel. The Prince rode to the Castle called the Heart and
took possession of it and the whole city became His. But there were
certain Diabolonians, followers of Diabolus, who never left the town.
They could not be seen in the streets. They could not be heard in the
markets. They never dared to occupy a house, but lurked about in
certain old dens and caves.
Some of them got impudent enough even to hire themselves out for
servants to the men of Mansoul under other names. There was Mr.
Covetousness who was called Mr. Prudent Thrifty. And there was Mr.
Lasciviousness, who was called Mr. Harmless Mirth. They took other
names and lived there, much to the annoyance of the town of Mansoul.
They skulked about in holes and corners, and only came out on dark days
when they could do mischief and serve the Black Prince.
Now in all of us, however watchful we may be, though we may set Mr. Pry
Well to listen at the door and he may watch, and my Lord Mayor, Mr.
Understanding, is very careful to search all these out, yet there will
remain much hidden sin. I think we ought always to pray to God to
forgive us sins that we do not know anything about. "Your unknown
agonies," says the old Greek liturgy. And there are unknown sins for
which those agonies make atonement. Perhaps the sins which you and I
confess are not a tenth of what we really commit. Our eyes are not
sufficiently opened to know of the heinousness of our own sin–and it
is possible that if we could fully know the extent of our own
sinfulness it would drive us mad!
It is possible that God, in His mercy, suffers us to be somewhat blind
to the abominable accursedness of sin. He gives us enough of it to make
us hate it, but not enough to drive us absolutely to despair. Our sin
is exceedingly sinful. Now allow me to suggest that among the sins
which lurk in us there is the old one of unbelief. You have had a very
great deliverance, my dear Brothers and Sisters, and you think you have
no more unbelief left in you. You do not know that old villain,
Unbelief, is never to be taken by the heels, or if he is put in the
stocks, he soon manages to escape.
You will have unbelief this very afternoon, if you happen to meet with
any trouble, and though now you say, "I never can stagger at the
promise through unbelief," I should not wonder but what a little
depression of spirits, perhaps weariness in God's service, might make
you to be as doubting as ever you were in your life! Do not harbor the
pleasing delusion that your unbelief is dead. It is hidden, but it will
come out again. Especially among these lurkers I must mention pride.
Oh, we think, "How could I be proud? Why I have been through such an
experience of my own weakness and sinfulness that I cannot be proud."
We little think that all the while we are talking we are saying about
the proudest thing that we could possibly say!
I talked once, I remember, with a man who thought himself a very
eminent Christian. He told me that what with affliction and experience
the Lord had wiped pride completely out of him. I said, "He must have
hit you very hard, Brother." I thought, while he was talking, he was
the incarnation of pride, but I did not remember that I, myself, was
probably quite as bad for thinking I should not like to have talked as
he did. Pride is such a cunning thing! It likes to wear the robes of a
prince but it is satisfied to wear the rags of a beggar if it cannot.
So long as it may get into our hearts it cares not what shape it
assumes.
That detestable sin of pride–we can all condemn it in other
people–and yet probably we have, each one, got a leaven of it, even in
our spirits, at this very moment. You are a proud thing, my Brother.
You are a proud thing, my Sister. There is still pride lurking in us
all! And beside these there is also a great amount of wrath and ill
temper in us. Oh, we think there is no one so good-tempered as we
are–we have not betrayed ourselves into an angry word for months! Yes,
but it is very easy to be good-tempered when you have it all your own
way. It is a very easy thing to be amiable, and kind, and loving, and
never to be angry when the wife is so kind, and the children obedient,
and the servants attentive, and business prospers!
But, my dear Brothers and Sisters, how would it be if matters were to
change, and they may very soon? Suppose you were irritated as Brother
So-and-So is–what then? Yon know we are not to judge the man by the
circumstances–we must judge him intrinsically by himself. A barrel of
gunpowder is not very dangerous to sit upon or to have under one's bed
at night, or to make a pillow of. It is a very safe thing, indeed,
provided that there is no fire anywhere about. It has not blown up, and
yet it has been under one's couch all the while. Ah, but if the sparks
had happened to fly, as they do fly in your neighbor's house across the
road, can you say that your powder is quite different from his powder?
And I think sometimes when we think we have destroyed anger, and put
down the tendency of wrath, it is only because the Canaanite has hidden
himself and we cannot see him! But he is still there and may come out
again one day. So is it often with our discontent and rebellion. I do
not know that I am discontent–several of you can say the same. You
feel happy this morning, grateful and thankful. You can sing–
"I would not change my blest estate For all the earth calls good or
great."
Yes, but you must not be too sure that you have no discontent left in
your heart. Now suppose–and the supposition is so easy to
make–suppose your best beloved should sicken and die? You can bless a
giving God–could you bless a taking God? Suppose that your riches took
to themselves wings, and every one of them should fly away? Could you
still praise the God who is as good when He takes as when He gives?
Brethren, we know not of what spirit we are. When we fancy we could run
with the horsemen, it were well to remember that we have not always
been able to run with the footmen! And when we fancy such-and-such a
friend behaved ill in deep affliction, it were well if we remembered
ourselves often, lest we also should repine–for discontent may be one
of the sins lurking in our soul.
Moreover, idolatry is a sin that is often found there. You do not know
that you idolize your child, and you will never know it until that
child dies–but then you will find it out. You do not know that you
idolize your substance. But if it were gone, or you had to give it up
and were ready, like Job's wife to say, "Curse God and die," you would
then discover that it was your golden calf. Idolatry has been the sin
of all ages and all times. Those dear children of God, whose hearts
should tell of Jehovah, and Jehovah alone, have need to keep careful
watch lest at the same time they indulge self-confidence which is only
another form of idolatry–the worship of ourselves instead of God.
Let us beware lest we indulge in self-satisfaction, and think that our
righteousness is something satisfactory after all. It is a blessed
thing to find idolatry out, but it will hide itself if it can. It is
well to consider the question, "How is it these things hide themselves
in us? Other people find them out–how is it we cannot find them?" It
is certain that you can detect other men's faults, but you cannot
detect your own! The lookers-on often see more than the players, and we
sometimes perceive more at a distance than when we approach near.
The fact is that partiality to ourselves blinds us to our own
imperfections and makes us see the mote in our brother's eye though
there is a beam in our own! In many cases this ignorance arises from
want of searching. It is not pleasant work to seek out faults–"take us
the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines." It is not easy work.
We do not like finding out sin. Too many of us are lazy about
religion–we do the work of God deceitfully, we do not search our
hearts with candles and try ourselves as with crucibles as in a
furnace–we are not purified seven times over, and so sin escapes for
want of a hearty search to find it out.
Besides, sin is so subtle it changes its shape. If Satan cannot shoot
us from above, he will do it from below. If he cannot assail us in the
head, he will seek to cast us down by tripping us with the foot. Sins
of every shape, form and hue come upon us, and the great probability is
that in trying to kill one sin we shall fall into another. Often in
aiming to attain to a virtue we have overshot the mark and gone into a
vice. We have wanted to honor God and humble ourselves, and then we
have grown mean in spirit. We wanted to be noble and bold, and have
grown intimidating. We wanted to be loving, and we grew to be falsely
charitable, tolerating sin. We wanted to be stern against sin, and have
grown bitter against friends who have fallen into it. We mistake the
narrow road and break the hedge either on the right hand or on the
left.
It is the subtlety of sin that makes it so hard for us to find it out.
Besides, Beloved, we have fallen into the bad habit of comparing and
contrasting ourselves with others. We are constantly indulging in the
supposition, "Oh, well, I am better than some." We look at our fellow
Christians and see their inconsistencies, and say, "Well, I do not do
that." The Pharisaic prayer is very common, even among Christians, I am
afraid, "Lord, I thank You that I am not as other men." The preacher
himself, though he might preach humility to you, sometimes gets to
comparing himself with other preachers, and his hearers, he doubts not,
do the same.
"Oh," you think, "I am more quick in God's work, more earnest than some
Christians. I wish they would wake up, too." But, while we are
censuring them, we are really laying a flattering unction to our own
souls by supposing we are so much better and that we have cut off so
much of our own sins. Oh, Beloved, take heed of comparing yourselves
with others, for this is not wise!
Come to Christ and look at Him, and then your faults will be apparent.
View His perfection, and in the light of that your own infirmities will
soon be discovered. But if you look at your Brother's righteousness,
which is but little better than yours, and perhaps not as good, you
will be apt to get proud and lifted up–and so fall into sin. I shall
not, however, enlarge upon this point. There are, no doubt, in all of
us, Canaanites still dwelling in the land that will be thorns in our
side.
II. Now, secondly, A SINGULAR MEANS FOR THEIR DESTRUCTION–"YOUR GOD
WILL SEND THE HORNET AMONG THEM." These fellows resorted to caves and
dens. God employed the very best means for their destruction. I suppose
these hornets were large wasps–two or three times, perhaps, as large
as a wasp–with very terrible stings. It is not an unusual historical
fact to find districts depopulated by means of stinging insects. In
connection with the journey of Dr. Livingstone, we can never forget
that strange kind of guest which is such a pest to the cattle in any
district that the moment it appeared they had either to fly before it
or to die.
The hornet must have been a very terrible creature. But it is not at
all extraordinary that there should have been hornets capable of
driving out a nation. The hornet was a very simple means. It was no
sound of trumpet, nor even the glitter of miracles–it was a simple,
natural means of fetching these people out of their holes. It is well
known that insects in some countries will sting one race of people and
not another. Sometimes the inhabitants of a country are not at all
careful about mosquitoes, or such creatures, when strangers are greatly
pestered with them.
God could, therefore, bring hornets which would sting the Jebusites but
not molest the Israelites, and in this way the Canaanites were driven
out of their holes. Some died by the stings of hornets and others were
put in the way of the sharp swords of the men of Israel, and thus they
died. The spiritual analogy to this is the daily trouble which God
sends to every one of us. I suppose you have all got your hornets. Some
have hornets in the family. Your child may be a hornet to you–your
wife, your husband, your brother, the dearest friend you have–may be a
daily cross to you. And, though a dead cross is very heavy, a living
cross is heavier by far.
To bury a child is a great grief, but to have that child live and sin
against you is ten times worse. You may have hornets that shall follow
you to your bedchamber–some of you may know what that means–so that
even where you ought to find your rest and your sweetest solace, it is
there that you receive your bitterest stings of trouble. The hornet
will sometimes come in the shape of business. You are perplexed–you
cannot prosper–one thing comes after another. You seem to be born to
trouble more than other people. You have ventured on the right hand,
but it was a failure. You pushed out on the left, but that was a
breakdown.
Almost everybody you trust fails immediately and those you do not trust
are the people you might have safely relied upon. You seem to be
infested with those hornets in your business to make everything go ill
with you. You have perplexity upon perplexity–nothing so serious as to
be your ruin–but a deal of fretful trouble which keeps you uneasy.
Others have hornets in their bodies. Some have constant
headaches–aches and pains pass and shoot along the nerves of others.
If you could but be rid of it, you think, how happy you would be! But
you have got your hornet and that hornet is always with you.
If I tried to get through the whole list of hornets I should need all
the morning, for there is a particular grief to every man. Each man has
his own form of obnoxious sting which he has to feel. You will come
running to your friend sometimes, and say, "Oh, I have such trouble!
So-and-So has been saying such-and-such a thing of me. If I had not so
many bad neighbors I should get on. This is the worst trouble a man
could have." You do not know, you do not know. The heart knows its own
bitterness. There is a skeleton in every closet. Every man has a shoe
that pinches more or less– and there is not a Christian on earth who
has not a hornet!
But what are they for? They are sent with the same object with which
God sent hornets into Canaan, namely, to drive out the Canaanites! And
I shall have to show you that they do so. Your hornets drive you to
prayer. Just put in the word hornet into the verse we have been
singing–
"Hornets make the promise sweet,
Hornets give new life to prayer,
Hornets bring me to His feet,
Lay me low and keep me there," and you have got the drift of what these
daily hornets do. You would not pray if you had not trouble! I am
afraid you would grow lax, cold, indifferent–but these sting you, and
you say, "I must go to my God for comfort under this pest, this
nuisance."
Why, what a blessing that is for you to be stung to your Father's
feet–blessed sting that brings you there! You would not value the
promises half as much if it were not for the hornets. You turn to some
precious Word of God that just suits your case, and you say, "I never
saw such sweetness in that as I do now. Blessed be God for sending a
passage so suitable to my condition." The hornets take you to the
promise, and seem to point you to the place where the milk and honey
flow.
And how they also tend to lay you at His feet after you have been hasty
in temper! After you have felt how proud you must have been, all
because of the hornet that brought the pride out, you have gone to God
and said, "Lord, I did not think I was such a fool. I should not have
believed it. If anyone had said to me yesterday, 'You would do
so-and-so,' I would have said, 'Is your servant a dog that I should do
such a thing?' But this has so troubled me, bit me in a sore place,
irritated me, that I could not bear it that I have done what I would
not have done for all the world."
That just shows what there was there before. You see, if sin had not
been in you, it could not have come out! All the trouble in the world
does not put sin in the Christian–it brings it out. And just as
disease is all the better when it is fetched out to the surface, that
so its power in the interior may be destroyed, so is it a blessing–a
painful blessing– when the hornet comes and makes us see the evil that
otherwise would have lain hidden in us. You know, my dear Friends,
practically, I dare say what I mean.
The other day you were in such a heavenly frame of mind–you had had
half an hour alone, or had just come home from Tabernacle and enjoyed
the service, and something patted you on the back and said, "How you
are grown in Divine Grace!" You did not say it in words, but you did
think, "Well, I am getting on. There is something good in me after
all." When you got home, perhaps the meat was badly cooked, or there
was something done the very opposite to what you had wished, and it
seemed to be done on purpose to irritate you. You thought so, and
without a moment's consideration you said some very strong words–very
strong, indeed!
Then something came and touched you on the other shoulder and said,
"Ah, is this growing in Divine Grace?" And you felt very humbled, taken
down a great many notches. And when you went upstairs to bed, if you
had gone up there without that hornet, your prayer would have been a
Pharisee's prayer! But as it was, when you got there all you could say
was, "God be merciful to me a sinner." The hornet had done you a world
of good! It might have fetched out a little bad temper, but for all
that it had fetched out your pride and self-conceit.
The daily troubles we have are meant to drive us to God, to drive us to
the promise, and also to show us where our weak points are in order
that we may contend with all our might against them. I believe, my dear
Friends, that the hardest-hearted, most cross-grained, and most
unlovely Christians in all the world are those who never have had much
trouble! And those who are the most sympathizing, loving, and
Christ-like, are generally those that have the most affliction. The
worst thing that can happen to any of us is to have our path made too
smooth, and one of the greatest blessings that ever the Lord gave us
was a cross.
"I should never have been able to see," said one, "if I had not been
blind." And said another, "I should never have been able to run the
race set before me if I had not broken my leg." Our infirmities are
channels of blessing! Our difficulties, trials, vexations, and
perplexities are most sweet and blessed means of Grace to our souls. I
think we ought to be very thankful to God for the hornet. Says one, "I
am not." "No trial for the present seems to be joyous but grievous.
Nevertheless afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness."
When you are in a sane mind, my dear Brothers and Sisters, and God the
Holy Spirit really teaches you to be wise, you will go and thank God
for hornets. "Lord, I bless You that You have not left me unchastised.
I praise You for the cares and troubles which are so unpleasant to my
flesh, by which that flesh is mortified. I thank You, Father." You
never hear a child say this, but if it were a wise child it would. "I
thank You, my Father, for the rod. I thank You, O my God, that You have
not let me have my own will, that You have blighted my prospects,
crossed my hopes, marred my plans, cast down my expectations, taken
away my joys. I thank You, O You great Liberator, for having broken the
golden bars of my cage to give my spirit liberty, and for having
snapped the bonds of my captivity which bound me to the earth, that I
might be able to mount upwards to Yourself." Whenever you are singing
God's praise, say, "He sent us hornets, for His mercy endures forever:
let Him be blessed evermore."
There is one point I want you to notice in the text. It would be guilt
on my part to pass it without observation, and that is we are expressly
told the hornets came from God. He sent them. "The Lord your God will
send the hornet." This will help you, perhaps, to bear their stings
another time. God weighs your troubles in scales and measures out your
afflictions, every drachma and scruple of them. And since they come,
therefore, directly from a loving Father's hand, accept them with
grateful cheerfulness! And pray that the result which Divine Wisdom has
ordained to flow from them may be abundantly realized in your
sanctification–in being made like Christ.
III. And now I have to close by observing that we have here A VERY
SUGGESTIVE LESSON TO OURSELVES, a lesson which we have already
anticipated, but let us repeat it. It is this. What is my particular
besetting sin? Have I been careful in self-examination? Have I issued a
constant search warrant against the subtle forms of evil? If not, I
must expect to have the hornet. God never punishes His children for
sin, but He chastens them for it paternally. You may often discover
what your sin is by the chastisement, for you can see the face of the
sin in the chastisement–the one is so like the other.
Dear Friend, what is your particular trouble today–what hornet stings
you? Go to God with Job's request, "Show me why You contend with me."
If the consolations of God are small with you, it is because there is
some secret sin in you. Look at the trouble you have today and see if
you cannot discover the sin. A disobedient child–is it possible that
you also are living in some act of disobedience to your heavenly
Father? Is it a servant who annoys you? Is it possible that you also
are an ill servant of the King, idle and indifferent to His command?
Is it a loss in business? May it not be possible that you are not
attending to God's business, and therefore His Church is a loser and
therefore He makes you a loser in your own business? Is it sickness in
the flesh? May there not be some spiritual sickness there which is
necessary to keep in check and to subdue? Has someone else treated you
haughtily? May you not also be haughty? Has another slandered you and
are you smarting under it? Have you ever spoken against the children of
God? May you not have an itching tongue, too, and God is making you
feel the smart of it so that you may mind how you remove the bridle
from the unruly tongue?
Has someone undervalued your labor and spoken depreciatingly of your
motives? May you not also have had hard thoughts concerning some of
your Brethren in Christian labors? Do you feel, just now, under great
depression of spirit? Is it not possible that you have neglected to
enter into fellowship with Christ in His suffering, and therefore He is
bringing you down into it by force? I know not how it may be with you,
Beloved, but this I know–I have not searched my own soul as I would
desire to do in the future. I would wish to find out everything that is
within me that is evil–that it may be dragged forth and executed at
once!
It is stern work. It is work that never could be done if it were not
for that precious assurance that God is with us. God, the mighty God of
Jacob, will have us to be His people. He has prepared a Heaven for a
perfect people and He will make us perfect that He may neither lose us,
nor the place He has prepared for us. He has sworn by Himself He will
never leave you. He will, with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm
drive out your lusts and corruptions till you shall be perfect as your
Father in Heaven is perfect!
Come, then, you men of war, take to your harness and buckle on your
armor, and nerve your souls for combat! "You have not resisted unto
blood, striving against sin." "Consider Him who endured such
contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest you be weary" in
yourselves. And now–from now on, and forever–fight the good fight for
the crown that fades not away.
I have been speaking to saved ones, and to saved ones, only. But you
that are unsaved will have the hornets, too. Only those hornets will be
of no use to you! They will sting you away from God, rather than to
Him. Your troubles will only make you dislike and hate the Most High
the more. Oh that His Grace would visit you and change your heart! And
then, maybe your trials might be sanctified to fetch you to your
Father's face. May it be so, and His shall be the glory evermore. Amen.