Sown Among Thorns
A Sermon
(No. 2040)
Delivered on Lord's-day Morning, August 19th, 1888, by
C. H. SPURGEON,
At [7]the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
"And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked
them"'Matthew 13:7.
"He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the
word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches,
choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful'Matthew 13:22.
WHEN that which comes of his sowing is unfruitful, the sower's work is
wasted: he has spent his strength for nothing. Without fruit the
sower's work would even seem to be insane, for he takes good wheat,
throws it away, and loses it in the ground. Preaching is the most idle
of occupations if the Word is not adapted to enter the heart, and
produce good results. O my hearers, if you are not converted, I waste
time and energy in standing here! People might well think it madness
that one whole day in the week should be given up to hearing
speeches-madness, indeed, it would be if nothing came of it to
conscience and heart. If you do not bring forth fruit to holiness, and
the end is not everlasting life, I would be better employed in breaking
stones on the road-side than in preaching to you.
Fruit-bearing made the difference appear in the various soils upon
which the sower scattered seed. You would not so certainly have known
the quality if you had not seen the failure or success of the seed. We
do not know your hearts until we see your bearing toward the Gospel. If
it produces in you holiness and love to God and humanity, then we know
that there is good soil in you; but if you are merely promising people,
but not performing people, then we know that the ground of your heart
is hard, or stony, or thorny. The Word of the Lord tries the hearts of
the children of men, and in this it is as the fire which distinguishes
between metal and dross. O my dear hearers, you undergo a test today!
Peradventure you will be judging the preacher, but a greater than the
preacher will be judging you, for the Word itself shall judge you. You
sit here as a jury upon yourselves; your own condition will be brought
clearly out by the way in which you receive or refuse the Gospel of
God. If you bring forth fruit to the praise of God's grace, well; but
if not, however you may seem to hear with attention and may retain what
you hear in your memories, if no saving effect is produced upon your
souls we shall know that the soil of your heart has not been prepared
of the Lord and remains in its native barrenness.
What fruit have you born hitherto from all your hearing? May I venture
to put the question to each one of you very pointedly'? Some of you
have been hearers from your childhood'are you any the better? What long
lists of sermons you must have heard by now! Count over your Sundays;
how many they have been! Think of the good men now in heaven to whom
you once listened! Remember the tears that were drawn from you by their
discourses! If you are not saved yet, will you ever be saved? If you
are not holy yet, will you ever be holy? Why has the Lord spent so much
on one who makes no return? To what purpose is this waste? Surely you
will have much to answer for in that great day when the servants of God
shall give in their accounts, and shall have no joy when they come to
mention you. How will you excuse yourselves before God for having
occasioned them so much disappointment?
At this time I will only deal with one class of you. I will not speak
to those of you who hear the Word, and retain none of it because of the
hardness of your hearts; such are the wayside hearers. Neither will I
address myself to those who receive the truth with sudden enthusiasm,
and as readily quit it when trial befalls them; such are the
rocky-ground hearers. But I will deal with those of you who hear the
Word attentively, and, in a sense, receive it into your hearts and
understandings, so that the seed grows in you, though its fruit never
comes to perfection. You are religious persons, and to all appearance
you are under the influence of godliness. You exhibit plenty of leaf,
but there is no corn in the ear, no substance in your Christianity. I
cannot speak with any degree of physical vigor to you by reason of the
infirmity under which I struggle; but what I do say to you is steeped
in earnest desire that the Lord may bless it to you. An eloquent
congregation will make any preacher eloquent: help me then this
morning. If you will give me your ear, you will make up for my
deficiency of tongue: especially if you give to God your hearts, He
will bless His truth, however feebly I may utter it.
First, I desire to talk to you a little about the seed which you have
received; secondly about the thorns; thirdly about the result.
I. First a little about THE SEED. Remember, first, that it was the same
seed in every case. Yonder it has brought forth thirty-fold; it was the
same seed which was lost upon you. In a still better case, the seed has
brought forth a hundred-fold; it was precisely the same corn with which
your field has been sown. The sower went to his master's granary for
all his seed; how is it that in your case it is all lost? If there were
two Gospels, we might expect two results without fault in the soil
which failed. But with many of you to whom I speak there has been only
one Gospel throughout the whole of your lives. You have been attending
in this house of prayer, where we have never changed our seed, but have
gone on sowing the one eternal truth of God. Many have brought forth
fruit a hundred-fold from the seed which has been scattered broadcast
from this platform. They heard no more than you have heard, but how
much better they treated it than you have done! I want you to consider
this. How covered with briars and thorns must your mind be that the
Gospel which converted your sister or friend never touched you! Though
you may be nominally a believer in the Word of God, it has never so
affected you as to make you gracious and holy. You are still a hearer
only. How is this? The fault is not in the seed, for it is the same
which has been so useful to others.
You have heard the Gospel with pleasure. "Heard it!" You say, "I heard
it when a little child." Your mother brought you to the house of God in
her arms. You have heard it and still hear it, though it is rather like
an old song to you: but is this to be all? I am very grateful that you
do hear the Gospel, for I hope that one of these days God may cause it
to grow in you and yield fruit. But still a grave responsibility is
upon you. Think how favored you have been! How will you answer for this
privilege if it is neglected and rendered useless by that neglect? Dear
hearers, if we lived in the heart of Africa and we died without
believing in a Christ of whom we had not heard, we could not be blamed
for that. But here we are in the heart of London where the Gospel is
preached in all our streets, and our blood will be on our own heads if
we perish. Do you mean to go down to hell? Are you so desperate that
you will go there wearing the garb of Christians? If you do persist
ruining your souls, my eyes shall follow you with tears; and when I
cannot warn you any longer, I will weep in secret places because of
your perversity.
Those described in my text were not only hearers, but in a measure they
accepted the good Word. The seed fell not only on this ground, but into
it, so that it began to grow. Of you it is true that you do not refuse
the Gospel, or raise disputes concerning it. I am glad that you have no
difficulties about the inspiration of Scripture, or the Deity of our
Lord, or the fact of His atonement. You do not befog yourselves with
"modern thought," but you avow your belief in the old, old Gospel. So
far so good; but what shall I make of the strange fact that your
acceptance of the truth has no effect upon you? It is a very lamentable
case, is it not, that a person should believe the Gospel to be true,
and yet should live as if it were a lie? If it is the truth, why do you
not yield obedience to it? The person knows that there is an atonement
for sin, but he has never confessed his sin and accepted the great
sacrifice. Those great truths, which circle about the Cross like a
coronet of stars, he has seen their beauty and enjoyed their
brilliance, but he has never allowed their light to enter his heart and
find a reflection in his moral character. This is evil, only evil. If
you believe the truth, what do you more than the Devil? No, you are
behind him, for he believes, and trembles, and you have not gone so far
as the trembling. It should be so, that every great truth which is
believed should influence the mind, sway the thoughts, and mold the
life. This is the natural fruitage of great spiritual truth. The
doctrine of grace, when it takes possession of the mind and governs the
heart, produces the purest results; but if it is held in
unrighteousness, it is a curse rather than a blessing to have a head
knowledge. Is it not a dreadful thing to believe God's revelation
without receiving God's Spirit? This is to accept a well, but never to
drink of the water; to accept corn in the barn, and yet die of hunger.
God have mercy upon the possessors of a dead faith!
The seed sown among thorns lived and continued to grow. And in many
people's minds the Gospel of divine truth is growing after a fashion:
they understand it better, can defend it more valorously, and speak of
it more fluently. Moreover, it does influence them in some form and
degree, for gross vices are forsaken. They are decent imitations of
believers: you can see the shape of an ear: the stalk has struggled up
through the thorns until you can see its head, and you are led to
expect corn. But go to that apparent wheat-ear, and feel it: there are
the sheaths but there is nothing in them; you have all the makings of
an ear of wheat, but it will yield no grain. I would speak to those
before me who, perhaps, have been baptized and are members of the
church; I want to ask of them a question or two. Do you not think that
there is a great deal of empty profession nowadays? Do you not think
that many have a name to live and are dead? "Yes," say you, "I know a
neighbor whom I judge to be in that condition." May not another
neighbor judge the same of you? Would it not be well to raise the
question about yourself? Have you really believed in the Lord Jesus?
Are you truly converted from sin and self? Turn that sharp eye of yours
homeward for a while. Examine your own actions, and judge your
condition by them. Put yourself into the crucible. O my God, what if I
should be a preacher to others, and should be myself a castaway! Will
not every deacon and elder, and every individual church member, speak
to himself after the same fashion. You will go to your Sunday school
class this afternoon; will you be teaching the children what you do not
know? You mean to go to a meeting this evening and talk to others about
conversion; will you be exhorting them to that which you have never
yourself experienced? Will it be so? You do not need fine preaching,
but you do need probing in the conscience. A thorough examination will
do the healthy no harm, and it may bless the sick. "Lord, let me know
the worst of my case," is one of my frequent prayers, and I suggest it
to you.
So much then about the seed: it was good seed, it was sown, it was
received by the soil, it grew and promised well, but yet in the end it
was unfruitful. No doubt multitudes, who receive Christianity, become
regular attendants at our place of worship, and are honest in their
moral character; but Christ is not all in all to them. He holds a very
secondary place in their affections. Their wheat is overshadowed with a
thicket of thorns, and is so choked that it comes to nothing. Their
religion is buried beneath their worldliness. Sad will their end be.
God in mercy save us from such a doom!
II. But now, secondly, I would speak a little about THE THORNS. They
are by Matthew described as "the care of this world, and the
deceitfulness of riches." Luke adds, "and pleasures of this life," and
Mark still further mentions, "the lusts of other things." I suppose
that the sower did not see any thorns when he threw the handful of
corn; they had all been cut down level with the surface. He probably
hoped that it was all good ground, and therefore he sowed it little
suspecting that the thorns were in possession.
Note well that thorns are natural to the soil. Since the fall these are
the firstborn children of the ground. Any evil which hinders religion
is not at all an extraordinary thing'it is what we ought to expect
among fallen human beings. Grace is an exotic; thorns are indigenous.
Sin is very much at home in the human heart and, like an ill weed, it
grows apace. If you wish to go to heaven, I might take a little time to
show you the way, and I would need to stir you up to diligence; but if
you must go to hell'well, "easy is the way to destruction"'it is only a
little matter of neglect. "How shall we escape if we neglect so great
salvation?" Evil things are easy things: for they are natural to our
fallen nature. Right things are rare flowers that need cultivation. If
any of you are being injured by the cares of the world and the
deceitfulness of riches, I am not astonished; it is natural that it
should be so. Therefore, be on your guard against these mischiefs. I
pray you say to yourself, "Come, there is something in this man's talk.
He is very slow and dull, but still there is something in what he says.
I may, after all, be tolerating those thorns in my heart which will
kill the good seed, for I am of like passions and infirmities with
other people." I beseech you look to yourselves, that you be not
deceived at the last.
The thorns were already established in the soil. They were not only the
natural inhabitants of the soil, but they were rooted and fixed in it.
Our sins within us claim the freehold of our faculties, and they will
not give it up if they can help it. They will not give way to the Holy
Spirit, or to the new life, or to the influences of divine grace,
without a desperate struggle. The roots of sin run through and through
our nature, grasp it with wonderful force, and keep up their grasp with
marvelous tenacity. O my dear hearer, whoever you may be, you are a
fallen creature! If you were the Pope himself, or the President of the
United States, or the Queen of England, it would be true of you that
you were born in sin and shapen in iniquity, and your unregenerate
heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. The
established church of the town of Mansoul has the Devil for its
archbishop. Sin has enclasped our nature as a boa constrictor encircles
its victim, and when it has maintained its hold for twenty, forty, or
sixty years, I hope you are not so foolish as to think that holy things
will easily get the mastery. Our evil nature is radically conservative,
and it will endeavor to crush out every attempt at a revolution by
which the grace of God should reign through righteousness. Wherefore,
watch and pray, lest temptation choke that which is good in you. Watch
earnestly, for grace is a tender plant in a foreign soil, in an
uncongenial clime, while sin is in its own element, and is strongly
rooted in the soil.
Do you know why so many professing Christians are like the thorny
ground? It is because processes have been omitted which would have gone
far to alter the condition of things. It was the husbandman's business
to uproot the thorns, or burn them on the spot. Years ago when people
were converted, there used to be such a thing as conviction of sin. The
great subsoil plow of soul-anguish was used to tear deep into the soul.
Fire also burned in the mind with exceeding heat: as people saw sin and
felt its dreadful results, the love of it was burned out of them. But
now we are dinned with braggings about rapid salvations. As for myself,
I believe in instantaneous conversions, and I am glad to see them; but
I am still more glad when I see a thorough work of grace, a deep sense
of sin, and an effectual wounding by the law. We shall never get rid of
thorns with plows that scratch the surface. Those fields grow the best
corn which are best plowed. Converts are likely to endure when the
thorns cannot spring up because they have been plowed up. Dear hearer,
are you undergoing today a very severe conviction of sin? Thank God for
it. Are you in awful trouble and anguish? Do not think that a calamity
has happened to you. May God Himself continue to plow you, and then sow
you, and make sure work in you for years to come! So you see these
thorns were natives, and old-established natives, and it would have
been well had they been cut up.
The thorns were bound to grow. There is an awful vitality in evil.
First the thorns sent up a few tiny shoots. These shoots branched out,
and more and more came to keep them company, until the wheat stood as a
lonely thing in a thicket of briars, and was more and more overtopped
and shadowed by them. The thorns aspired to the mastery, and they soon
obtained it; that done, they set to work to destroy the wheat. They
blocked it up, crowded it out, and some of the thorn shoots twisted
around it, and held the wheat by the neck until it was choked.
The thorns sucked away all the nutriment from the wheat, and it was
starved, for there is only a certain quantity of nourishment in the
soil, and if the thorns have it, the wheat must go without it. There is
only a certain amount of thought and energy in a person; and if the
world gets it, Christ cannot have it. If our thoughts run upon care and
pleasure, they cannot be eager about true religion: is not that clear?
That is the way in which those thorns served the wheat; they starved it
by devouring its food, and they choked it by keeping off the air and
sun; the poor thing became shriveled and weak, and quite unable to
produce the grain which the sower expected of it. So it is with many
professing Christians. They are at first worldly, but not so very
worldly. They are fairly religious, though by no means too zealous.
They seek the pleasures of the world, but by no means quite so much as
others we could name. But very soon the thorns grow, and it becomes
doubtful which will win, sin or grace, the world or Christ. Two masters
there cannot be, and in this case it is especially impossible since
neither of the contending powers will brook a rival. Sin has sprung
from a royal though evil stock, and if it be in the heart, it will
struggle for the throne. So it came to pass that the tares, being
tolerated, choked the good seed.
Let me describe these thorns a little. Putting together Matthew, Mark,
and Luke, we find that there were four sorts of thorns. The first is
called "the care of this world." This assuredly comes to the poor; they
are apt to grow anxious and mistrustful about temporal things. "What
shall we eat? What shall we drink? Wherewithal shall we be clothed?"
This trinity of doleful questions much afflicts many. But anxiety comes
to rich people also. Care dwells with wealth as well as with poverty.
"How shall I get more? How shall I lay it up? How shall I still
increase it?"'and so on. It is "the care of the age" which we are most
warned against. Each age has its own special fret. It is not a care for
God'that is not the care of any age; but the care of the age is some
vanity or another, and as a standing thing it is the ambition to keep
up with your fellows, to be respectable, and to keep up appearances.
This is the care which eats as does a canker in the case of many. Grim
care turns many a black hair white, and furrows many a brow. If you let
care grow in your soul, it will choke up your religion: you cannot care
for God and for mammon too. "We must have care," says one. There is a
care which is proper, and there is an anxiety which is improper. That
is proper care which you can cast upon God'"Casting all your care upon
him; for he careth for you." That is an improper care which you dare
not take to God but have to bear yourself. Take heed of anxiety; it
will eat the heart out of your religion.
There were others who felt "the deceitfulness of riches." Our Lord does
not say "riches," but "the deceitfulness of riches." The two things
grow together: riches are evermore deceitful. They deceive people in
the getting of them, for people judge matters very unfairly when a
prospect of gain is before them. The jingle of the charming guinea, or
of "the almighty dollar," makes a world of difference to the ear when
it is hearing a case. People cannot afford to lose by integrity and so
they take the doubtful way, and either sail near the wind or speculate
until it amounts to gambling. They would not endure the idea of such
conduct were it not that the hope of gain deceives them. Our line of
conduct ought never to be ruled by gain or loss. Do right if the
heavens fall. Do no wrong, even though a kingdom should be its reward.
People turn to Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations," a wonderful book, and
there they find certain laws which I believe to be as fixed and
unalterable as the laws of gravitation; led on by the deceitfulness of
riches, people make these laws into an excuse for grinding the faces of
the poor. They might as well take people to the top of a rock, fling
them down, and dash them to pieces, and then cry out, "This is the
natural result of the law of gravitation." Of course, the law of
gravitation operates remorselessly, and so will the law of supply and
demand. We must not use either of these laws as a cover for cruelty to
the poor and needy, yet many do so through "the deceitfulness of
riches."
Riches are very deceitful when they are gained, for they breed in men
and women many vices which they do not themselves suspect. One man is
purse-proud, but he thinks he is humble. He is a self-made man and
worships him that made him. Is it not natural that a person should
worship his maker? In his heart he thinks: "I am somebody. I came up to
London with half-a-crown in my pocket, and now I could buy a whole
street!" People ought to respect someone of that kind, ought they not,
even though he may have made his money by very queer practices? It
little matters how you make money nowadays; only get it, and you will
have plenty of admirers and the deceitfulness of riches will enable you
to admire yourself. With pride comes a desire for wealthy society and
vain company, and thus again religion receives severe injury. There is
apt to grow up in the mind an idolatry of this world and its treasures.
"I don't love money," says one. "You know it is not money that is the
root of all evil, but the love of it." Just so; but are you sure that
you do not love it? Your thoughts run a good deal after it. You hug it
rather closely and you find it hard to part with it. I will not accuse
you, but I would have you awake to the fact that riches worm themselves
into a person's heart before he is well aware of it.
You may perceive the deceitfulness of riches if you note the excuses
which people make for getting so much and withholding it from the cause
of God. "They intend to do a great deal of good with it." Did you hear
the Devil laugh? I am not speaking of many dear people in this place
who are doing a great deal of good with their means, but I am speaking
of those who are simply living to accumulate wealth, and who say that
they will one day do a great deal of good with it. They say so. Will it
ever be more than saying? I fear that in this thing many rich people
deceive themselves. They go on accumulating the means but never using
them; making bricks, but never building. All they will get with it will
be a corner in "The Illustrated London News" to say that they died
worth so much. O sirs, how can you be content thus to have your good
things choked? Wherever this deceitfulness of riches is allowed the
upper hand, it chokes the good seed. A person cannot be eager to get,
and eager to keep, and eager to increase, and eager to become a
millionaire, and at the same time be a true servant of the Lord Jesus.
As the body grows rich, the soul grows poor.
Luke tells us of another kind of weed, namely, "the pleasures of this
life." I am sure that these thorns play a dreadful part nowadays. I
have nothing to say against recreation in its proper place. Certain
forms of recreation are needful and useful; but it is a wretched thing
when amusement becomes a vocation. Amusement should be used to do us
good "like a medicine"; it must never be used as the food of the
individual. From early morning until late at night some spend their
time in a round of frivolities, or else their very work is simply
carried on to furnish them funds for their pleasures. This is vicious.
Many have had all holy thoughts and gracious resolutions stamped out by
perpetual trifling. Pleasure, so called, is the murderer of thought.
This is the age of excessive amusement. Everybody craves for it, like a
babe for its rattle. In the more sober years of our fathers, men and
women had something better to live for than silly sports. The thorns
are choking the age.
Mark adds, "and the lusts of other things." I will not enumerate all
those other things, but all things except the things of Christ and of
the Father are "other things." If anybody spends his life on any
object, however good, short of the glory of God, the good seed is
choked by the inferior object. One person is eminently scientific, and
he will do well if his science is used for holy purposes, but it can be
used to choke the seed. Another person is a great proficient in the
arts, and he does well if the arts are used as a mule for Christ to
ride upon, but if art is to ride upon Christ, then it is ill enough. I
met with a clergyman many years ago who was going a long distance to
find a new beetle. He was a great entomologist, and I did not blame him
for it, for to a thoughtful person entomology may yield many profitable
lessons. But if he neglected his preaching to catch insects, then I do
not wonder that a parishioner would wish that the beetles would nibble
his old sermons, for they were very stale. I call it choking the seed
when any inferior pursuit becomes the master of our minds, and the
cause of God and truth takes a secondary place. The seed is choked in
our souls whenever Christ is not our all in all. You see my drift: be
it what it may'gain, glory, study, pleasure'all these may be briers
that will choke the seed.
Mr. Jay was never more pleased than when at Bristol he had a note sent
up to him which ran as follows: "A young man, who is prospering in
business, begs the prayers of God's people that prosperity may not be a
snare to him." Take care that you look thus upon your prosperity. My
dear friend Dr. Taylor, of New York, speaks of some Christians nowadays
as having a "butterfly Christianity." When time, and strength, and
thought, and talent are all spent upon mere amusement, what else are
men and women but mere butterflies? "Society" is just a mass of idle
people keeping each other in countenance. O dear hearers, surely we did
not come into this world to play away our days! I do not think we came
into this world either to slave ourselves to death, or to rust away in
laziness. We have come here as a man enters into the porch that he may
afterward enter the house. This life is the doorway to the palace of
heaven. Pass through it in such style that you may enter before the
King with holy joy. If you give your minds and thoughts to these
passing things, be they what they may, you will ruin your souls, for
the good seed cannot grow.
III. So I close in the last place by noticing THE RESULT. The seed was
unfruitful.
These briers and thorns could not pull the seed up, or throw it away.
It remained where it was, but they choked it. So it may be that your
business, your cares, your pleasures have not torn up your religion by
the roots'it is there still, such as it is. But these things suffocate
your better feelings. Someone that is choked is not good for much. If a
thief gets into his house, and he desires to defend his property, what
can he do while he is choked? He must wait until he gets his breath
again. What an amount of choked religion we have around us! It may be
alive. I do not know whether it is or not; but it looks very black in
the face. God save you from having your religion choked!
I have already told you it was drained of all its sustenance. Look at
many Christians; I call them Christians for they call themselves so. A
boy in the streets, selling mince pies, kept crying, "Hot mince pies!"
A person bought one of them, and found it quite cold. "Boy," said he,
why did you call these pies hot?" "That's the name they go by, sir,"
said the boy. So there are plenty of people that are called Christians,
but they are not Christians'that's the name they go by; but all the
substance is drained out of them by other matters. You see the shape of
a Christian, the make of a Christian, and some of the talk of a
Christian, but the fruit of a Christian is not there. That is the
result of the choking by the thorns of care, riches, pleasure, and
worldliness in general.
What life there was in the wheat was very sickly. Let me remind certain
persons that their spiritual lives are growing weak at this time.
Morning prayer this morning, how long did it take? Do not grow red in
the face. I will say no more about it. You are not coming out tonight,
are you? Half a Sunday is enough worship for you. Would you not like to
live in some country place where you did not need to go out to a place
of worship even once? Bible reading, how much do you do of that? Family
prayer, is that a delight to you? Why, numbers of so-called Christians
have given up family religion altogether. How about week-day services?
You are not often at a prayer-meeting. No, the distance is too great!
Thursday night service? "Well, well, you see I might come, but there
happens to be a lawn tennis party that night." Will you come in the
winter'? "Yes, I would, but then a friend drops in, and we have an
evening at bagatelle." How many there are in this condition! I am not
going to judge them, but I remember that an eminent minister used to
say, "When weekday services are forsaken, farewell to the life of
godliness." Such people never seem to bathe in their religion, but they
give themselves a wetting with the end of the towel; thus they try to
look decent, but they are not inwardly cleansed.
As to confessing Christ before men and women, many fall altogether. If
you were pushed into a corner, and were asked if you are a Christian,
you would say, "Well, I do go to a place of worship," but you are by no
means anxious to own the soft impeachment. Our Salvation Army friends
are not ashamed of their religion; why should you be? Our Quaker
friends used to wear broad brims, but they are very properly giving up
their peculiar garb. I hope it is not to be to you an indication that
you may conceal your religion and be as much as possible like the
world. Do you hope to be soldiers and yet never wear your regimentals?
This is one of the marks of feeble religion.
When it comes to defending the Gospel, where do you see it in this age?
I hoped that many would be found among Baptists who would care for the
truth; but now I come to the conclusion that it is with many, as with
the showman when asked which was Wellington, and which was Bonaparte:
"Whichever you please, my little dears. Pay your money, and take your
choice!" Free will or free grace, human merit or Christ's atonement, it
does not matter now. New theology or old theology, human speculation or
divine revelation'who minds? What do they care whether God's truth
stands or the Devil's lies? I am weary of these drivellers! The thorns
have choked the seed in the pulpits and in the churches as well as in
private individuals. Oh, that God would return! Oh, that His Spirit
would raise up among us people who believe indeed, and prove the power
of their belief!
The fruit of much modern piety is nil. I sat down one day with three or
four old Christian men. We had no sooner met than we began to speak of
the providential dealings of God with His people. We related instances
of answers to prayer, and we spoke of the sovereign grace of God, and
His faithfulness to His saints. When we had gone a little forward in
the conversation, one remarked how he had enjoyed the talk. "Alas!"
said he, "nobody talks about God now. His providence and His readiness
to hear prayer are seldom mentioned now. The talk is all about the
markets, and the weather, and Home Rule, and Mr. Gladstone, and
Disestablishment, but little enough about the Lord Jesus Christ." That
witness was true. In old times the Lord's people spoke often one to
another, and the Lord stood at the window and listened:'"The Lord
hearkened, and heard it." He liked their talk so well that He said He
would print it'"A book of remembrance was written before him for them
that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name." Where do you get
experimental Christian talk now'? The thorns choke holy communion upon
the best things.
Fervent prayer! Mighty prayer! Where do you meet with it? Thank God, we
have some brothers and sisters here whose prayers could unlock the
windows of heaven, or shut them up; but it is not so with many. Go to
the prayer-meetings of most of the churches. What poor things! Of
course I find in country places that many drop the prayer-meeting
during hay-time and harvest. In London they do not drop the
prayer-meetings in summer because they are too small to need dropping.
They take up the fragment of a prayer-meeting and mend with it the
worn-out lecture, so that it becomes neither lecture nor prayer
meeting. How can we expect a blessing when we are too lazy to ask for
it? Is it not evidence of a dying religion when, to cover their
carelessness about meeting for prayer, we even hear ministers doubting
the value of prayer-meetings and calling them "religious expedients"?
Where do you meet with intense enjoyment of the things of God? The
spiritual life is low when there is little delight in holy service. Oh,
for the old Methodistic fire! Oh, to feel our hearts dance at the sound
of Jesus' name! Oh, to flame up like beacon fires, and blaze toward
heaven with holy ecstasy! It is a sorrowful day when religion goes
abroad without wearing her ornaments of joy. When an army has left its
flag behind, it has evidently given up all idea of victory.
If there is a declension in spiritual life, we cannot expect to see
deeds of holy consecration. Oh, for men and women who bring their
alabaster boxes to Jesus! I am glad when I hear this kind of
lamentation. "My dear sir, I have not done for the Lord what I ought to
have done. I have been a believer now for many years, but I have not
given to His cause what I ought to have given; tell me what I can do."
There are hopeful signs in such inquiries and therefore they are well,
but it would be better to begin early and avoid such regrets.
I would put it to you, my dear hearer, have you been fruitful? Have you
been fruitful with your wealth? Have you been fruitful with your
talent? Have you been fruitful with your time? What are you doing for
Jesus now? Salvation is not by doings, you are saved by grace, but if
you are so saved, prove it by your devoted life. Consecrate yourself
anew this day wholly to your Master's service. You are not your own,
but bought with a price, and if you would not be like these
thorn-choked seeds, live while you live, with all-consuming zeal.
"Well," says one, but there are the thorns." I know there are. They
were here when our blessed Lord came among us, and they made Him a
cruel crown. Are you going to grow more of them? May I urge you to give
up cultivating thorns'? They are useless; they come to no good.
Whatever the pursuit is, short of the glory of God, it is a thorn and
there is no use in it. It will in the end be painful to you as it was
to your Lord. A thorn will tear your flesh, aye, tear your heart.
Especially when you come to die will these thorns be in your pillow.
Even if you die in the Lord, it will grieve your heart to think you did
not live more to Jesus. If you live for these things, you will rue the
day, for they are like thorns, painful in the getting, painful in the
keeping, and painful in the extraction. You who have had a thorn in
your hand know what I mean. Worldly cares come with pain, they stay
with pain, and they go with pain.
Still, there is a use for thorns. What is that use? First, if you have
thorns about you today, make a child's use of them. What does a child
do? If he gets a thorn in his finger, he looks at it, and cries. How it
smarts! Then he runs off to his mother. That is one of the sweet uses
of his adversity, it admits him to his mother at once. She might say,
"What are you coming in for? Run about the garden." But he cries,
"Please, mother, I've got a thorn in my finger." This is quite enough
argument to secure him the best attention of the queen of the house.
See how tenderly she takes out the little dagger! Let your cares drive
you to God. I shall not mind if you have many of them if each one leads
you to prayer. If every fret makes you lean more on the Beloved, it
will be a benefit. Thus make good use of the thorns.
Another service to which thorns may be put is to make a hedge of them,
to keep the goats of worldly pleasure from eating the young shoots of
your graces. Let the sorrows of life keep off temptations which else
might do you serious mischief.
May we meet in heaven! Oh, may we all meet in heaven! What a
congregation I have addressed this morning! I feel overawed as I look
at you. From the ends of the earth have many of you come. The Lord
bless you! Strangers are here in vast numbers, for the most of our
regular hearers are at the seaside. I may never see you again on earth.
May we all meet in heaven, where thorns will never grow! May we be
gathered by the angels in that day when the Lord shall say, "Gather the
wheat into my barn"! Amen. So let it be.
PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON'Matthew 13:1-23.
HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"'916, 643, 30.