The Plumb Line
(No. 2904)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1904.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
AUGUST 27, 1876.
"Thus He showed me: and, behold, the Lordstood upon a wall made by a
plumb line, with a plumb line in His hand. And the LORD said unto me,
Amos, what do you see? And I said, A plumb line. Then said the Lord,
Behold, I will set a plumb line in the midst of My people Israel: I
will not again pass by them anymore." Amos 7:7, 8.
GOD usually speaks by men according to their natural capacity. Amos was
a herdsman. He was not a man of noble and priestly rank, like Ezekiel,
nor a man of gigantic intellect and mighty eloquence, like Isaiah. He
was a simple herdsman and, therefore, God did not cause him to see the
visions of Isaiah, or dazzle his mind with the wondrous revelations
that were given to Ezekiel. God's rule is, "Every man in his own order"
and if we depart from that, we get out of place and we are apt to try
to make others do that which they are not fit to do and then blame them
when they fail to accomplish what they should never have attempted! God
always uses His servants in the best possible way and as they ought to
be used. And so, when the herdsman Amos had a vision, he simply saw a
piece of string with a plumb of lead at the bottom of it–a plumb
line–a thing which he could easily understand.
There was a mystery about the vision, but the vision itself was not
mysterious. It was a very simple emblem, indeed, exactly suited to the
mind of Amos, just as the visions of Ezekiel and Isaiah were adapted to
the more poetic minds of men of another class. You and I, dear Brothers
and Sisters, may be very thankful if God should use us as he did Amos
and, if He does, we must not be envying the Isaiahs and Ezekiels. If we
see a plumb line, let us preach about a plumb line! And if God should
ever enable us to understand the visions of Zechariah or Ezekiel, then
let us preach about them. Let every preacher or teacher testify
according to the measure of the Light of God and Grace that God has
given him–then we shall do well. Amos can see a plumb line and he sees
it well–and when he has seen it, he tells what he has seen–and leaves
God to set His seal upon his testimony.
Now, on this occasion we have nothing before us but this plumb line,
but there is a great deal to be learned from it. The first thing is
this–the plumb line is used in construction. Secondly, the plumb line
is used for testing what is built And, thirdly, it appears from the
text that the plumb line is used in the work of destruction, for the
casting down of that which is found not to be straight.
I. First, THE PLUMB LINE IS USED IN CONSTRUCTION. We are told in the
text that "the Lord stood upon a wall made by a plumb line," that is to
say, a wall which had been constructed with the help of a plumb line
and, therefore, He tested it with that which was supposed to have been
used in its construction–which was a fair and proper thing to do. If
the wall only professed to be run up without a plumb line, then it
might be hard to try it with the plumb line. But as it was a wall which
professed to have been constructed according to the rules of the
builder's art, it was fair and reasonable that it should be tested by
the plumb line.
First, then, dear Friends, a plumb line is used in building when it is
done as it ought to be. And I remind you that God always uses it in His
building. Everything that God builds is built plumb, straight, square
and fair. You see that rule at work in Nature–there is nothing out of
proportion there. Those who understand these things and look deeply
into them will tell you that the very form and size of the earth have a
connection with the blooming of a flower, or the hanging of a dew-drop
upon a blade of grass and that if the sun were larger or smaller than
it is, or if the material of
which the earth is formed were more dense, or different in any degree
from what it is, then everything–the most magnificent and the most
minute–would be thrown out of gear! Someone of old used to say that
God is the great Arithmetician–the great Master of geometry–and so He
is. He never makes any mistakes in His calculations. There is not
anything in the world that He has made in a careless manner. The mixing
of the component parts of the air we breathe is managed with consummate
skill and if you could resolve a drop of water into its original
elements, you would be struck by the wisdom with which God has adapted
the proportions of each particle so as to make a liquid which man can
drink! Everything is done by order and rule, as in the changes of the
various seasons, the movements of the heavenly bodies and the
arrangements of Divine Providence. God always has the plumb line in His
hand. He never begins to build, as a careless workman would, that which
might turn out to be right, or might turn out to be wrong–He makes
sure work of all that He does.
In spiritual matters it is very manifest that whenever God is dealing
with souls, He always uses the plumb line. In beginning with us, He
finds that the very foundation of our nature is out of the
perpendicular and, therefore, He does not attempt to build upon it, but
commences His operations by digging it out. The first work of Divine
Grace in the soul is to pull down all that Nature has built up. God
says, "I cannot use these stones in My building. This man has been
behaving himself admirably in some respects and he thinks that he is
building up a temple to My honor and glory with his own natural
virtues, his own good works and other things of a like character. But
all this must be dug out." The man has taken a great deal of pains in
putting it together but it must all come out and there must be a great
hole left–the man must feel himself emptied, abased and humbled in the
sight of God, for if God is to be everything to the man, then He must
be nothing! And if Christ is to be his Savior, He must be a complete
Savior from beginning to end. So the foundation of human merit must be
cleared right out and flung away, for God could not build squarely upon
it. With such a foundation as that, the plumb line would never mark a
perpendicular wall.
After all human merit has been flung out, the Lord begins His gracious
work by laying the foundation stone of a simple faith in Jesus
Christ–and that faith, though simple, is very real. When a man
professes to convert his fellow man, he only gives him a fictitious
faith which is of no value to him. But when God saves a sinner, He
gives him real faith. There may be little knowledge of the Truth of
God, but the little that the man knows is truth–and faith, though it
is but as a grain of mustard seed, if it is of the right sort, it is
better than that faith which is as big as a mountain, yet all of the
wrong sort, which will not stand in the time of testing! But the faith
which the Holy Spirit gives is the faith of God's elect–the real faith
which will endure even the tests which God applies to it.
Side by side with that faith, God puts true repentance. When a man
attempts to convert his fellow man, he gives him a sham repentance, or
perhaps he tells him that there is no need of any repentance at all.
Certain preachers have been telling us, lately, that it is a very easy
matter to obtain salvation and that there is no need of repentance–or
if repentance is needed it is merely a change of mind. That is not the
Doctrine that our fathers used to preach, nor the Doctrine that we have
believed! That faith which is not accompanied by repentance will have
to be repented of! So, whenever God builds, He builds repentance fair
and square with faith. These two things go together–the man just as
much regrets and grieves over the past as he sees that past obliterated
by the precious blood of Jesus. He just as much hates all his sin as he
believes that his sin has been all put away.
The Lord never builds anything falsely in any man, or teaches him to
reckon that to be true which is not true. He builds with facts, with
substantial verities, with true Grace and with a real and lasting work
in the soul. When the Lord builds in a man, He builds with the plumb
line in the sense of always building up that which is towards holiness.
Have any of you fallen into sin? Rest assured that God did not build
you in that way. Have sinful desires and lusts after evil been excited
within you by any doctrine to which you have listened? Then you may be
sure that it was not of God! "By their fruits shall you know them," is
an Infallible test of doctrines as well as of disciples! And if any of
you have embraced any form of doctrine which hinders you from being
watchful, prayerful, careful and anxious to avoid sin, you have
embraced error and not the Truth of God, for all God's building tends
towards holiness, towards carefulness, towards a gracious walk to the
praise and glory of God!
When the Lord builds a man up, He makes him conscientious, makes him
jealous of Himself, makes him detect the very shadow of sin so that
before the sin, itself, comes upon him, he holds up his all-covering
shield of faith that he may be preserved from its deadly assaults. You
may always know God's building because it is pure building, clean
building–
but if anybody builds you up in such a style that you can talk of sin
as a trifle and think that you may indulge in it even in the least
measure with impunity–that is certainly not God's building!
And, blessed be His name, when our souls are really given up into the
Lord's hands, He will continue to build in us until He has built us up
to perfection! There will come a day when sin which now makes its nest
in this mortal body of ours shall find this body dissolving and
crumbling back to the earth of which it was made–and then our
emancipated spirits, delivered from the last taint and trace of
sin–free from even the tendency to evil–shall soar away to be with
Christ which is far better–and to wait for the trumpet of the
Resurrection, when the body, itself, shall also be delivered from
corruption, for the grave is a refining pot and, at the coming of
Christ, our body shall be pure and white like the garments of a bride
arrayed to meet her bridegroom! And the soul, re-united with the body,
shall have triumphed over every sin! This is the way that God builds.
He does not build us up so that we can go to Heaven with our sin still
working in us. He does not build us up to be temples for Him to dwell
in and let the devil also dwell in us. Antinomian building is not
according to the fashion of God's building–God builds up surely,
solidly, truthfully, sincerely and until we have reached that state of
perfection which makes us fit for Heaven!
Now, Beloved, as God thus uses the plumb line in His building, I gather
that we also should use the plumb line in our building. First, with
regard to the lifting up of our own soul, I would urge upon myself,
first, and then upon you, next, the constant use of the plumb line. It
is very easy to seek after speed and to neglect to ensure certainty.
There is such a thing as being in a dreadful hurry to do what had
better never be done, or else be done in a very different style. We see
some people who become Christians in about two minutes–and I am
devoutly thankful when that is really the case. We see some others
become full-grown Christians in about two days and instructors of
others in the course of a week–and, very speedily, they attain to such
vast dimensions that there is no ordinary church that is big enough to
hold them! That is very quick work–that is the way that mushrooms
grow, but it is not the way that oaks grow! I urge you all to remember
that often the proverb, "the more haste, the less speed," is true in
spiritual things as well as in temporal. My dear Brothers and Sisters,
if you only grow an inch in the course of ten laborious years, yet that
growth is real–it is better than appearing to grow six feet in an hour
when that would only be disease puffing you up and blowing you out.
Often and often the soul needs to use the plumb line to see whether
that which is built so very quickly is really built perpendicularly, or
whether it does not lean this way or that. As the work goes on, we
should frequently stop and say to ourselves, "Now, is this right? Is
this real? Is this true?" Many a time, if we did that, we would have to
fall on our knees and cry, "O Lord, deliver me from exalting myself
above measure and counting myself to be rich and increased with goods
when, all the while, I am wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked."
I would like you young men who are here to use the plumb line when you
begin your spiritual life-building. I mean this–your father and mother
are members of a certain church, but do not you, therefore, go and join
that church without a thorough investigation of the principles on which
it is founded. Use the plumb line to see whether it is all straight and
square. Try all the doctrines that are taught and do not embrace that
which is popular, but that which is Biblical! Then try with the plumb
line the ordinances of the church–do not submit to them simply because
other people do so, but use the plumb line of Scripture to test them
all. You know that as a body we are not afraid that you will ever read
your Bible too much. We, as Baptists, have no objection to your
bringing everything that is taught to the test of the Bible, for we
know that we would be the gainers if you were to do that. But instead
of using the plumb line of the Bible, many people have a newly-invented
test–the Book of Common Prayer, or Minutes of the Conference, or
something else equally valueless! Now, whatever respect I have for
books of that sort, I prize my Bible infinitely above them all and
above all the volumes of decrees of popes, councils and conferences put
together! I would not like to feel that I had been building, and
building, and building, and building and yet that there had been a
radical error in the whole structure, for I had commenced with a
mistake and I had been building myself up not in the most holy faith of
the Apostles, but in the most mischievous error of my own notions! I
pray you, apply the Bible plumb line continually to all your beliefs,
views and practices!
But, even before you do that, use the Gospel plumb line to see whether
you really were ever born-again, for our Lord Jesus said to Nicodemus,
"except a man is born-again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God." Test
yourselves as to whether you have really believed in Jesus Christ for,
"without faith it is impossible to please God." And if you have
believed in Him, take care that while you think you are getting more
faith, more love, more patience, more of every Grace–keep
the plumb line going–otherwise you may get a great deal into the
structure that you will have to take out, again, and you will get the
building out of the perpendicular and the whole of it may come down
with a crash!
And this plumb line is also to be used upon all work that is done on
behalf of other people. There is much teaching which has been given
with a pure motive, but which, nevertheless, cannot endure this test.
There are some little sects still existing upon the face of the earth
that were formed with much labor by their originators, but they are
evidently not gold, or silver, or precious stones, for they are passing
away with the lapse of time. I would like, as a minister of the Gospel,
to do for God that which will endure the supreme test of the Day of
Judgment. I should not like to build up a great Church and then, when I
was dead and gone, for it to be scattered to the four winds–and to
learn in Heaven that I had been mistaken except as to the matter of my
own salvation and that, consequently, while some good was done, there
was evil done as well! No, we must constantly use the plumb line so
that what we build may be perpendicular and may stand the test of the
ages and the test of God's great Judgment Seat! Look to it, Sirs, you
who are diligent, that you are diligent in spreading the Truth of God
and not error! See to it, you who count up your many converts, that
they are real converts and not the mere fruit of excitement! See to it,
you who plod on from day to day so industriously seeking to save souls
that they are really saved and truly brought to Christ, for, if not,
your work will be in vain! Churches that are built in a hurry will come
down in a hurry–wood, hay and stubble that look all right in the
building will look terrible in the burning when the Day of the Trial by
Fire comes!
So that is our first point–that the plumb line is to be used in the
construction of the building.
II. Secondly, THE PLUMB LINE IS TO BE USED FOR TESTING THE BUILDING
WHEN IT IS BUILT.
Do not let us judge either ourselves or one another simply by the eyes.
I have frequently thought that a building was out of the perpendicular
when it was not and I have sometimes thought it perpendicular when it
really was not so. The human eye is readily deceived, but the plumb
line is not–it drops straight down and at once shows whether the wall
is upright or not . We must continually use upon ourselves the plumb
line of God's Word. Here is a wall that needs to be tested–the wall of
self-righteousness. This man thinks he is all right. He never did
anything very wrong. Moreover, he is religious in his way. He says that
he has kept the Law of God from his youth up. That is a fine piece of
wall, is it not?– with some very handsome stones inlaid with fair
colors. You are very proud of it, my dear Friend, but if I put the
Bible plumb line to your life, you will be astonished to find how much
out of the perpendicular it is. The plumb line is according to this
standard, "If any man will be saved by his own works, he must keep the
Law of the Lord perfectly, for he who is guilty of the breach of any
one of God's commandments, has broken the whole Law. 'Therefore by the
deeds of the Law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight.'" That
condemns your wall, does it not?–because you have not at all times
kept the whole Law of God in the fullness of the meaning which Christ
gave to it. If you are to be saved by works, there must not be a single
flaw in the whole wall of your life! If there is, it is not in the
perpendicular.
Here is another wall, built by a man who says that he is doing his best
and trusting to Christ to make up for his deficiencies. Well, my dear
Friend, your wall is sadly out of the perpendicular because there is a
text which says, "Christ is all"–and I know that the Lord Jesus Christ
will never be willing to be put side by side with such a poor creature
as you are–to be jointly used with yourself to your soul's salvation!
Remember that in the Gospel plan it is not Christ and Co.–it must be
all Christ, or no Christ at all! So, if you are depending partly upon
self and partly upon Him, my plumb line shows that your wall is out of
the perpendicular and that it will have to come down.
Another man is depending upon rites and ceremonies. Now there are some
very strong texts in Scripture concerning that matter. Here is one. "To
obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams."
Will you come before God bringing the blood of beasts or costly
offerings? Has He not told you that to come before Him with a broken
and a contrite heart and, especially to come to Him through the merit
of the one great Sacrifice offered by His Son is the only acceptable
way of approaching Him? The most gorgeous ceremonies in the whole world
cannot save a single soul! That wall is out of the perpendicular and
must come down!
Here is another man who says, "I am, as often as I can be, a hearer of
the Word." I am glad that you are, but if you are only a hearer and not
a doer of the Word, your wall is out of the perpendicular, for, if it
is good to hear what is right, it is still better to doit. And your
condemnation will be all the more terrible if you have known what you
ought to do and yet have not done it. There are many of you who come
here and who have been coming for a long time who, I hope, will be led
to do much more than simply come to hear, for I trust that you will be
led by the Holy Spirit to lay hold on
eternal life! If not, your wall will not endure the test of the Bible
plumb line which plainly shows that you are quite out of the
perpendicular!
There are many other bowing walls, beside those I have mentioned, but I
cannot stop to try them now. I would, however, most earnestly urge you
all to remember that if you do not testyourselfby the plumb line of
God's Word–if you are God's servant, you will be tried and tested.
Have you ever known what it is to be laid aside, on a bed of sickness,
and to have everything about you tried? In times of acute pain I have
had every morsel of what I thought to be gold and silver put into the
fire, piece by piece, by the Master, Himself, until He has put it all
in. Thank God some of it has been proven to be gold and has come out
all the brighter for the testing. But oh, how much of it has proved to
be alloy, or even worthless dross! You can have a great deal of
patience when you have not any pain. And you can have a great deal of
joy in the Lord when you have got joy in your worldly prosperity–and
you can have any quantity of it when you have no troubles to test its
reality! But the real faith is that which will endure the trial by
fire. The real patience is that which will bear intense agony without a
murmur of complaint. The Lord will test and try you, my Brothers and
Sisters, sooner or later, if you are His. He will be sure to use the
plumb line so you had better use it yourself. It may save you much
anxiety in the future if you stop now to question yourself and to
enquire whether these things are real and true to you or not.
And remember, once more, that God will use the plumb line at the Last
Great Day to test everything. How many of us could hear, without a
tremor, the intimation that God had summoned us to appear before His
bar? O my Brothers and Sisters, if the great scales of Divine Justice
were swinging from this ceiling right now and the Judge of All said to
you, "Step in and let me see what is your weight," is there one of us
who could solemnly and sincerely rise and say, "Lord, I am ready for
the weighing"? Yes, I trust that many could say, each one for himself
or herself, "There is not anything good in me, but my hope is fixed on
Christ alone. And though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I want
to be, nor what I shall be, yet 'by the Grace of God I am what I am.'
My profession of being a Christian is not a lie. It is not a pretense,
it is not a piece of religious masquerade–it is true, great God–it is
true."
My Brother, my Sister, if you can say that, you may step into the
scales without any fear, for the contrite and believing heart can
endure being weighed! But into the scales you will have to go whether
you are ready or not. Your building will all have to be tested and
tried. Some of you have built fine mansions, towers and palaces–but
the plumb line will be applied to them all and it is God, Himself, who
will use the plumb line in every case! No counterfeit will be allowed
to pass the pearly gates, nor anything that defiles, or works
abomination, or makes a lie. At the Last Great Day none shall pass from
beneath the eye of the Judge of all without due examination. He will
not suffer even one of the guilty to escape, nor condemn any of those
who have been absolved for Christ's sake. It will be a right and just
judgment that will be given in that day–but there will be judgment!
III. My last point is this–THE PLUMB LINE IS USED IN THE WORK OF
DESTRUCTION.
When a city wall was to be battered down, the general would sometimes
say, "This wall is to be taken down to this point." And then the plumb
line was hung down to mark how far they were to go with the work of
destruction. They thus marked out that part which might be spared and
that which must be destroyed. Now, in the work of destruction, God
always uses the plumb line and He goes about that work very slowly. He
shows that He does not like it. When the Lord is going to save a
sinner, He has wings on His feet–but when He is going to destroy a
sinner, He goes with lead footsteps, waiting, warning many times and
while He waits and warns, He sighs and cries, "How shall I give you
up?" He even goes so far as to use an oath, saying, "As I live, says
the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that
the wicked turn from his way and live." God never brings men to
judgment, as the infamous Judge Jeffreys did, in a great haste–he
would hurry them off to the gallows with indecent speed. But, at the
Last Great Day there will be a solemn and stately pomp about the whole
dread assize–the sounding of the trumpet, the bursting of the graves,
the setting up of the Great White Throne, the opening of the books and
the majestic appearance of Him from whose face Heaven and earth will
flee away! And when the Judgment begins, it will not be without due
order, nor will it be without keen perception of all differences. There
will hang the Infallible plumb line! That which is perpendicular will
be declared to be perpendicular and that which bows will be shown
tottering to its fall, for, before the Judge's eyes and before the eyes
of the assembled universe shall hang a plumb line, with these words
above it, "He who is filthy, let him be filthy still…and he who is
holy, let him be holy still."
The whole judgment shall be according to the plumb line. Not a soul, in
that great day, will be sent to Hell who does not deserve to go
there/If there is any man who can plead that it would be unjust to
condemn him–if he can truthfully prove that he has been obedient up to
the measure of his light–if he can prove that justice is on his
side–God will not do an unjust turn to him or to any other man. Those
awful gates that grind upon their iron hinges never yet opened to
receive a soul damned unjustly! It would be impossible, in the very
nature of things, for such a thing to happen. If any man could truly
say, "This is unjust," he would have taken away the sting of Hell, for
this is the essence and the soul of Hell–"I am wrong and can never get
right. I am wrong and do not want to get right. I am so wrong that I
love the wrong and make evil to be my good, and good to be my evil! I
hate God, for it is impossible, while I am in such a state as this,
that I can be otherwise than unhappy–and this is the greatest Hell
that can happen to a man–not to love God and not to love right." That
is the flame of Hell, the worm that gnaws forever–that being out of
gear with God–that being out of harmony with the Most High forever! I
think that there needs to be no fiercer Hell than that.
So the final judgment will be according to the plumb line so that no
one will be condemned unjustly. You talk to me about the fate of the
heathen who have never heard the Gospel and I reply, "I know very
little about them, but I know that God is just, so I leave them in His
hands knowing that the Judge of all the earth will do right." There
will not be one pang, to a soul in Hell, more than that soul
deserves–not a single spasm of despair, or a sinking in hopelessness
that is imposed by the arbitrary will of God. It will be a terrible
reaping for them, when they reap sheaves of fire, but they will only
reap what they have sown. There will be an awful pouring out of Divine
Vengeance upon the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction, but no one
will be able to say that the judgment is unjust. The lost will feel
that they only have to eat as they baked and to drink as they brewed.
It will all be just to them and this is what will make the teeth of the
serpent of Hell and the flame of its fire–that it is all just–that if
I were, myself, judge, I must condemn myself to what I have to suffer.
Think of that and escape from the wrath to come!
And as that plumb line hangs there, in that Great Day of Account, there
will be differences made between some lost men and other lost men. All
Hell is not the same Hell any more than all flesh is the same flesh.
That man knew His Lord's will and did it not–lay on the lashes to the
fullest that the law allows! That other man did not obey His Lord's
will, but then, he did not know it, so he shall be beaten with few
stripes. Few will be too many for anyone to bear, so do not run the
risk of them! But, oh, the many stripes–what will they be? There are
the lost that perished in Sodom and Gomorrah–those filthy beings whose
sins we dare not think upon. There they are and there is the Hell they
suffer. There hangs the plumb line and, by His unerring justice, God
awards their doom!
But what will He award to you, and you, and you who have heard the
Gospel simply and plainly preached, and yet have rejected Christ? You
will have to go lower down in Hell than the inhabitants of Sodom and
Gomorrah, for God's plumb line tells us that sin against the Light of
God is the worst of sin and that the willful rejection of the atoning
blood flowing from the loving Savior's wounds is the climax of all
iniquity! That is how the plumb line will work. And when you come up,
you rich man who has spent your money in sin–and when you come up, you
poor man who works so hard–there shall be a difference between the one
of you and the other–between the seducer whom the world allows to
enter into her drawing room and the poor girl whom he led astray, for,
though both are guilty–God will make a difference, not as men make it
here, but quite the other way! The man of talent, of rank and of
position who frittered away his whole existence in the life of a
butterfly–there will be a difference between his sentence and that of
the obscure, uneducated individual who did sin, but not as he did who
had the greater gifts! To put one talent in a napkin brings its due
punishment–but to bury or misuse 10 talents shall bring a tenfold
doom–for there will hang that plumb line and by the rules of Infinite
Justice everything shall be determined.
"This is dreadful talk," some of you may be saying. It is. It is. And
it is a dreadful business altogether for the lost– that being driven
from God's Presence when you die–hearing Him say, "Depart, you cursed,
into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels." You do
not like to hear about this and I do not like to preach about it. Only
I must do so lest you come unto that place of torment because I failed
to warn you. Then might you say in your despair, "O cursed preacher! O
unfaithful minister! You tried to tickle our ears with pleasant things
but you left out all allusions to the wrath to come! You toned down the
Truth of God, you softened it–and now we are ruined forever through
your wicked desire to please our foolish ears!
Sirs, you will never be able to truthfully say that, for I do pray you
to escape from that awful future! Run no risk of it. I think every one
of you would like to have his house insured against fire and to know
that as far as proper title-deeds go, whatever you have is held on a
good tenure. Then I implore you, make sure work for eternity by laying
hold on Christ Jesus! Yield yourself up to Him that He may make you
right where you are wrong, put you in gear with God and set you running
parallel with the will of the Most High! That He, indeed, may build you
up on the perpendicular, on the solid foundation of His eternal merits
by faith through the power of the ever-blessed Spirit–that you may be
so built that when God, Himself, holds the plumb line, it may hang
straight down and He will be able to say, "It is all right." Happy will
you be if you hear His verdict, "Well done, good and faithful servant;
you have been faithful in a few things, I will make you ruler over many
things. Enter into the joy of your Lord."
May God grant this mercy to each one of you, for Jesus Christ's sake!
Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGE0N: 1 CORINTHIANS 3.
Verse 1. AndI, brethren, coulddnot speak unto you as unto spiritual,
but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. Their spiritual part
had not grown strong. Their old carnal nature still had the
preponderance as Paul was obliged to address that which was the bigger
half of them.
2. I have fed you with milk. That is a blessing.
2. And not with meat That is not a blessing. It is a great privilege to
be fed even with the simple Doctrines of Grace, with the milk of the
Gospel. But it is a higher blessing to have such a spiritual
constitution as to be able to eat the strong meat of the Word!
2, 3. For hitherto you were not able to bear it, neither yet now are
you able. For you are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you
envying, and strife, and divisions, are you not carnal, and walk as
men? As ordinary, unregenerate men.
4. For while one says, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are
you not carnal? Is not this just how common, ordinary men would do?
Where is your spiritual-mindedness if you so act?
5. Who then is Paul?Mark, it is Paul, himself, who asks this question!
He puts his own name here in order to show that he does not despise
Apollos any more than he despises himself.
5-9. Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom you
believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? I have planted, Apollos
watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that plants
anything, neither he that waters; but God that gives the increase. Now
he that plants and he that waters are one: and every man shall receive
his own reward according to his own labor. For we are laborers together
with God: you are God's husbandry. You are God's tilled ground. Then
the Apostle works out the same thought under another image turning from
agriculture to architecture.
9, 10. You are God's building. According to the Grace of God which is
given unto me as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation, and
another builds thereon. Paul began the churches. He was the first
preacher of the Gospel in Corinth and also in other places–and other
preachers followed in his footsteps. When a man lays a good foundation,
he always feels anxious that those who come after him should build in
the same substantial manner as he has begun. It is a great grief to a
man if he sees that after he has laid a foundation of the Truth of God,
somebody else follows and builds up an error on the top of it. Alas,
men still do that sometimes!
10-15. But let every man take heed how he builds thereupon. For other
foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now
if any man builds upon this foundation with gold, silver, precious
stones, wood, hay, rubble; every man's work shall be made manifest: for
the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the
fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work
endures which he has built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any
man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall
be saved; yet so as by fire. If he is a good man, he builds for God,
though he may build mistakenly and say much that he ought not to have
said. He shall escape, as a man flies out of a burning house, but all
his work is gone. What a dreadful thing that would be, at the end of
life, to get
into Heaven, but to have seen that all your life's work had been a
failure–to have been building a great deal, but to see it all
burned–or to know, as you die, that because it was not God's Truth, it
would all be burned!
16, 17. Know you not that you are the temple of God, and that the
Spirit of God dwells in you? If any man destroys the temple of God–For
so it should run–
17. Him shall God destroy. If any man should pull down that which Paul
built for God–if any man shall pull down that which any faithful
minister of Christ has built before him–"him shall God destroy;"
17, 18. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are. Let no man
deceive himself If any man among you seems to be wise in this world,
let him become a fool, that he may be wise. For that kind of folly is
the doorstep of true wisdom.
19. For the wisdom of the world is foolishness with God. All that which
calls itself philosophy and talks about its culture and so on, is
foolishness with God–just as much today as it was among the Greeks.
19, For it is written, He takes the wise in their own craftiness. They
call themselves wise, but they shall all be taken in their own
craftiness.
20, 21. And again, The lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they
are vain. Therefore let no man glory in men. Men are poor things to
glory in.
21, 23. For all things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas,
or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come,
all are yours and you are Christ's; and Christ is God's. Glory be to
His holy name!