The Spurgeon Series 1855 & 1856. Charles H. Spurgeon

in his children. It has often been the lot of good men to have great troubles from their sons and daughters. True, we know some households that are the very image of peace and happiness; where the father and mother bow the knee together in family prayer, and they look upon an offspring, numerous or not, as it may be, but most of them devoting their hearts to God. I know a household which stands like a green oasis in the desert of this world. There are sons who preach God’s gospel, and daughters who are growing up to fear the Lord, and to love him. Such a household is indeed a pleasant halting place for a weary soul in its pilgrimage through this wilderness of life. Oh! happy is that family whom God has blessed. But there are other houses where you will find the children are the trials of the parents. “Although my house is not so with God,” may many an anxious father say; and you pious mothers might lift your streaming eyes to heaven, and say, “Although my house is not so with God.” That firstborn son of yours, who was your pride, has now turned out to be your disgrace. Oh! how have the arrows of his ingratitude pierced into your soul, and how do you keenly feel at this present moment, that sooner would you have buried him in his infancy; sooner might he never have seen the light, and perished in the birth, than that he should live to have acted as he has done, to be the misery of your existence, and the sorrow of your life. Oh sons who are ungodly, unruly, light hearted, and profligate, surely you do not know the tears of pious mothers, or you would stop your sin. I think, young man, you would not willingly allow your mother to shed tears, however dearly you may love sin. Will you not then stop at her entreaties? Can you trample upon your mother? Oh! though you are riding a steeple chase to hell, cannot her weeping supplications induce you to stop your mad career? Will you grieve her who gave you life, and fondly cherished you at her breast? Surely you will ponder long before you can resolve to bring her grey heirs with sorrow to the grave. Or has sin brutalized you? Are you worse than stones? Have natural feelings become extinct? Is the evil one entirely your master? Has he dried up all the tender sympathies of your heart? Stop! young prodigal, and ponder!

      5. But, Christian men! you are not alone in this. If you have family troubles, there are others who have borne the same. Remember Ephraim! Though God had promised that Ephraim should abound as a tribe with tens of thousands, yet it is recorded: “And the sons of Ephraim; Shuthelah and Bered his son, and Tahath his son, and Eladah his son, and Tahath his son, and Zabad his son, and Shuthelah his son, and Ezer and Elead, whom the men of Gath that were born in that land killed, because they came down to take away their cattle. And Ephraim their father mourned many days, and his brethren came to comfort him.” {1 Chronicles 7:20-22} Abraham himself had his Ishmael, and he cried to God on account of it. Think of Eli, a man who served God as a high priest, and though he could rule the people, he could not rule his sons; and great was his grief in it. Ah! some of you, my brethren in the gospel, may lift your hands to heaven, and you may utter this morning these words with a deep and solemn emphasis — you may write “Although” in capitals, for it is more than true with some of you — “Although my house is not so with God.”

      6. Before we leave this point, what must I say to any of those who are thus tried and distressed in estate and family? First, let me say to you my brethren, it is necessary that you should have an “although” in your lot, because if you did not have one, you know what you would do; you would build a very downy nest on earth, and there you would lie down in sleep; so God puts a thorn in your nest in order that you may sing. It is said by the old writers, that the nightingale never sang so sweetly as when she sat on thorns, since they say, the thorns prick her breast, and remind her of her song. So it may be with you. You, like the larks, would sleep in your nest had not some trouble pass by and frighten you; then you stretch your wings, and carolling the morning song, rise to greet the sun. Trials are sent to wean you from the world; bitters are put into your drink, that you may learn to live upon the dew of heaven: the food of earth is mingled with gall, that you may only seek for true bread in the manna which drops from the sky. Your soul without trouble would be as the sea if it was without tide or motion; it would become foul and obnoxious. As Coleridge describes the sea after a wondrous calm, so would the soul breed contagion and death.

      7. But furthermore, remember this, oh you who are tried in your children — that prayer can remove your troubles. There is not a pious father or mother here, who is suffering in the family, but may have that trial taken away yet. Faith is as omnipotent as God himself, for it moves the arm which leads the stars along. Have you prayed long for your children without a result? and have you said, “I will cease to pray, for the more I wrestle, the worse they seem to grow, and the more I am tried?” Oh! do not say so, you weary watcher. Though the promise tarries, it will come. Still sow the seed; and when you sow it, drop a tear with each grain you put into the earth. Oh, steep your seeds in the tears of anxiety, and they cannot rot under the clods, if they have been baptized in so vivifying a mixture. And what if you die without seeing your sons the heirs of light? They shall be converted even after your death; and though your bones shall be put in the grave, and your son may stand and curse your memory for an hour, he shall not forget it in the cooler moments of his recollection, when he shall meditate alone. Then he shall think of your prayers, your tears, your groans; he shall remember your advice — it shall rise up, and if he lives in sin, still your words shall sound as one long voice from the realm of spirits, and either frighten him in the midst of his revelry, or charm him heavenward, like angel’s whispers, saying, “Follow on to glory, where your parent is who once did pray for you.” So the Christian may say, “Although my house is not so with God now, it may be yet;” therefore will I still wait, for there are mighty instances of conversion. Think of John Newton. He even became a slaver, yet was brought back. Hope on; never despair; faint heart never wins the souls of men, but firm faith wins all things; therefore watch and be prayerful. “What I say to you, I say to all, watch.” There is your trouble, a small cup filled from the same sea of tribulation as was the Psalmist’s when he sang, “Although my house is not so with God.”

      8. II. But secondly: David had confidence in the covenant. Oh! how sweet it is to look from the dullness of earth to the brilliancy of heaven! How glorious it is to leap from the ever tempest tossed bark of this world, and stand upon the terra firma of the covenant! So did David. Having done with his “Although,” he then puts in a blessed “yet.” Oh! it is a “yet,” with jewels set: “He has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure.”

      9. Now let us notice these words as they come. First, David rejoiced in the covenant, because it is divine in its origin. “Yet has HE made with me an everlasting covenant.” Oh that great word HE. Who is that? It is not my father or my mother who has made a covenant for me — none of that nonsense. It is not a covenant man has made for me, or with me; but yet has “HE made with me an everlasting covenant.” It is divine in its origin, not human. The covenant on which the Christian rests, is not the covenant of his infant sprinkling: he has altogether broken that scores of times, for he has not “renounced the pomps and vanities of this wicked world,” as he should have done, nor “all the lusts of the flesh.” Nor has he really become regenerate through those holy drops of water which a cassocked {a} priest cast on his face. The covenant on which he rests and stands secure, is that covenant which God has made with him. “Yet has HE made.” Stop, my soul. God, the everlasting Father, has positively made a covenant with you; yes, that God, who in the thickest darkness dwells and reigns for ever in his majesty alone; that God, who spoke the world into existence by a word, who holds it, like an Atlas, upon his shoulders, who poises the destiny of all creation upon his finger; that God, stooping from his majesty, takes hold of your hand and makes a covenant with you. Oh! is it not a deed, the stupendous condescension of which might ravish our hearts for ever if we could really understand it? Oh! the depths! “HE has made with me a covenant.” A king has not made a covenant with me — that would be something: an emperor has not entered into a compact with me; but the Prince of the kings of the earth, the Shaddai, the Lord of all flesh, the Jehovah of ages, the everlasting Elohim. “He has made with me an everlasting covenant.” Oh blessed thought! it is of divine origin.

      10. But notice its particular application. “Yet has he made with ME an everlasting covenant.” Here lies the sweetness of it to me, as an individual.

      Oh how sweet to view the flowing

      Of