The Spurgeon Series 1857 & 1858. Charles H. Spurgeon

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Название The Spurgeon Series 1857 & 1858
Автор произведения Charles H. Spurgeon
Жанр Религия: прочее
Серия Spurgeon's Sermons
Издательство Религия: прочее
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isbn 9781614582069



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table, and rare the wines of which he was invited to drink. A chair was placed at the head of the table, and the guest was seated within it. Horror of horrors! The feast might be rich, but the guest was miserable, dreadful beyond thought. However splendid might be the array of the servants, and however rich the dainties, yet he who had been invited sat there in agony. For what reason? Because over his head, immediately over it, there hung a sword, a furbished sword, suspended by a single hair. He had to sit all the time with this sword above him, with nothing but a hair between him and death, you may conceive the poor man’s misery. He could not escape; he must sit where he was. How could he feast? How could he rejoice? But, oh my unconverted hearer, you are there this morning, man, with all your riches and your wealth before you, with the comforts of a home and the joys of a household; you are there this day, in a place from which you cannot escape; the sword of death above you, prepared to descend; and woe to you, when it shall cleave your soul from your body! Can you yet make mirth, and yet procrastinate? If you can, then truly your sin is presumptuous in a high degree. “Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins.”

      12. II. And now I come to the second part of the subject, with which I shall deal very briefly. I am to try and show WHY IT IS THAT THERE IS GREAT ENORMITY IN A PRESUMPTUOUS SIN.

      13. Let me take any one of the sins: for instance, the sin against light and knowledge. There is greater enormity in such a presumptuous sin than in any other. In this our happy land it is just possible for a man to commit treason. I think it must be rather difficult for him to do it; for we are allowed to say words here which would have brought our necks beneath the guillotine, if they had been spoken on the other side the channel; and we are allowed to do deeds here which would have brought us long years of imprisonment, if the deed had been done in any other land. We, despite all that our American friends may say, are the freest people to speak and think in all the world. Though we have not the freedom of beating our slaves to death, or of shooting them if they choose to disobey — though we have not the freedom of hunting men, or the freedom of sucking another man’s blood out of him to make us rich — though we have not the freedom of being worse than demons, which slave catchers and many slave holders most certainly are — we have liberty greater than that; liberty against the tyrant mob, as well as against the tyrant king. But I suppose it is just possible to commit treason here. Now, if two men should commit treason — if one of them should wantonly and wickedly raise the standard of revolt tomorrow, should denounce the rightful sovereign of this land in the strongest and most abominable language, should seek to entice the loyal subjects of this country from their allegiance, and should draw some of them astray, to the harm and injury of the common good. He might have in his rebellions ranks one who joined incautiously, not knowing where the matter might lead, who might come into the midst of the rebels, not understanding the intention of their unlawful assembling, not even knowing the law which prohibited them from being banded together. I can suppose these two men brought up upon a charge of high treason: they have both, legally, been guilty of it; but I can suppose that the one man who had sinned ignorantly would be acquitted, because there was no malignant intent; and I can suppose that the other man, who had wilfully, knowingly, maliciously and wickedly raised the standard of revolt, would receive the highest punishment which the law could demand. And why? Because in the one case it was a sin of presumption, and in the other case it was not so. In the one case the man dared to defy the sovereign, and defy the law of the land, wilfully, out of mere presumption. In the other case not so. Now, every man sees that it would be just to make a distinction in the punishment, because there is — conscience itself tells us — a distinction in the guilt.

      14. Again: some men, I have said, sin deliberately, and others do not do so. Now, in order to show that there is a distinction here, let me take a case. Tomorrow the bench of magistrates are sitting. Two men are brought up. They are each of them charged with stealing a loaf of bread. It is clearly proven, in the one case that the man was hungry, and that he snatched the loaf of bread to satisfy his necessities. He is sorry for his deed, he grieves that he has done the act; but most manifestly he had a strong temptation to it. In the other case the man was rich, and he wilfully went into the shop merely because he wished break the law and show that he was a lawbreaker. He said to the policeman outside, “Now, I care neither for you nor the law; I intend to go in there, just to see what you can do with me.” I can suppose the magistrate would say to one man, “You are discharged; take care not to do the like again; there is something for your present necessities; seek to earn an honest living.” But to the other I can conceive him saying, “You are an infamous wretch; you have committed the same deed as the other, but from very different motives; I give you the longest term of imprisonment which the law allows me, and I can only regret that I cannot treat you worse than I have done.” The presumption of the sin made the difference. So when you sin deliberately and knowingly, your sin against Almighty God is a higher and a blacker sin than it would have been if you had sinned ignorantly, or sinned in haste.

      15. Now let us suppose one more case. In the heat of some little dispute some one shall insult a man. You shall be insulted by a man of angry temper; you have not provoked him, you gave him no just cause for it; but at the same time he was of a hot and angry disposition, he was somewhat foiled in the debate, and he insulted you, calling you by some name which has left a stain upon your character, so far as epithets can do it. I can suppose that you would ask no reparation from him, if by tomorrow you saw that it was just a rash word spoken in haste, of which he repented. But suppose another person should waylay you in the street, should week after week seek to meet you in the market place, and should after a great deal of toil and trouble at last meet you, and there, in the centre of a number of people, unprovoked, just out of sheer, deliberate malice, come before you and call you a liar in the street; I can suppose that Christian as you are, you might find it necessary to chastise such insolence, not with your hand, but with the arm of that equitable law which protects us all from insulting violence. In the other case I can suppose it would be no trouble to you to forgive. You would say, “My dear fellow, I know we are all hasty sometimes — there, now, I do not care at all for it; you did not mean it.” But in this case, where a man has dared and defied you without any provocation whatever, you would say to him, “Sir, you have endeavoured to injure me in respectable society; I can forgive you as a Christian, but as a man and a citizen, I shall demand that I am protected against your insolence.”

      16. You see, therefore, in the cases that occur between man and man, how there is an excess of guilt added to a sin by presumption. Oh! you who have sinned presumptuously — and who among us has not done so? — bow your heads in silence, confess your guilt, and then open your mouths, and cry, “Lord, have mercy upon me, a presumptuous sinner.”

      17. III. And now I have nearly done — not to weary you by too long a discourse — we shall notice THE APPROPRIATENESS OF THIS PRAYER — “Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins.”

      18. Will you just note, that this prayer was the prayer of a saint, the prayer of a holy man of God? Did David need to pray thus? Did the “man after God’s own heart” need to cry, “Keep back your servant?” Yes, he did. And note the beauty of the prayer. If I might translate it into more metaphorical style, it is like this, “Curb your servant from presumptuous sin.” “Keep him back, or he will wander to the edge of the precipice of sin. Hold him in; Lord he is apt to run away; curb him; put the bridle on him; do not let him do it; let your overpowering grace keep him holy; when he wishes do evil, then draw him to good, and when his evil propensities would lead him astray, then check him.” “Check your servant from presumptuous sins!”

      19. What, then? Is it true that the best of men may sin presumptuously? Ah! it is true. It is a solemn thing to find the apostle Paul warning saints against the most loathsome of sins. He says, “Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, idolatry, inordinate affection,” and such like. What! do saints need warning against such sins as these? Yes, they do. The highest saints may sin the lowest sins, unless kept by divine grace. You old experienced Christians, do not boast in your experience; you may trip yet, unless you cry, “Hold you me up, and I shall be safe.” You whose love is fervent, whose faith is constant, whose hopes are bright, do not say, “I shall never